


Crooked He Did Fly

by Lasarina



Series: So Fell the Angels [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Brother-Sister Relationships, Drama, F/M, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, Other, Romance, Season/Series 06, Sis-fic, Sister-fic, Sisters, Tragedy, Winchester Sister
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-18
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-08 01:25:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 44,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3190640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasarina/pseuds/Lasarina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters succeeded in achieving their greatest feat yet, they outsmarted the Devil himself and shoved him and Michael both back in the cage. But at tremendous cost and loss to the Winchester family. Now, after a year without his siblings, all Dean wants is for things to be the way they were before. Is it possible to ever get back what they once had? And how can he ever rebuild his broken family?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1: Angels Flying Too Close to the Ground

 

 

**Chapter 1: Angels Flying Too Close to the Ground**

 

_You know, I've…I've been here for a very long time. And I remember many things. I remember being at a shoreline, watching a little grey fish heave itself up on the beach and an older brother saying, "Don't step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish."_

_I remember the Tower of Babel…All 37 feet of it, which I suppose was impressive at the time. And when it fell, they howled 'divine wrath.' But come on—dried dung can only be stacked so high. I remember Cain and Abel…David and Goliath…Sodom and Gomorrah._

_And, of course, I remember the most remarkable event—remarkable because it never came to pass. It was averted by three siblings, an old drunk, and a fallen angel. The grand story. And we ripped up the ending and the rules…and destiny…leaving nothing but freedom and choice._

_Which is all well and good, except… Well, what if I've made the wrong choice? How am I supposed to know? What if I've wronged the very people I intended to protect? What if I wronged the very person that taught me what freedom and choice…and_ love _were? What if I destroyed the only being that ever really looked at me and saw something special?_

_I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you my_ story. _Let me tell you everything._

 

************

 

"Sweet. Blood, boils, locusts," Dean dryly comments.

"Three of your more popular Egyptian plagues," Sam agrees from across the table, his eyes still on his laptop, researching their current case.

After picking up the jar of insects in front of him, Dean notes, "Yeah, but these guys…ate their way out of a cop's melon. I don't quite remember that in the King James."

Not seeming as disturbed by the issue as Dean, Sam blithely continues, "Meanwhile, a kid named Christopher Birch _was_ shot in the head last month after a vehicle pursuit. Hatch, Gray, and Colfax were the three officers involved, and they all filed the exact same police report."

Dean shakes his head, trying to get back on point with their current case and push his brother's strange behavior once more from his mind. Picking up the police report, he reads, "'Suspect exited vehicle brandishing a firearm. We were forced to fire.'" Remembering what else they'd said, he repeats, "'Just a kid with no face and a planted gun.' Bunch of dicks. So they pop the kid, plant the piece."

"Maybe Colfax is right. You know, maybe heaven has a hate-on for bad cops," Sam suggests with a careless shrug.

"So we're listening to the guy with the bug in his custard?" Dean incredulously asks, tossing the papers back onto the table as he stands. "That's—that's the, uh, the theory you want to go with?" He shakes his head once more as he turns to get another drink from the mini fridge, wishing not for the first time that he could get another opinion on Sam's recent behavior. From someone who knows him as well as he does. Or at least _did_ know him.

"I miss Tab," he whispers to himself, cracking open the beer and drinking half the bottle without stopping.

Sam straightens up upon hearing the whispered words, eyes narrowing as he defensively asks, "Where'd that come from?"

Deciding he won't pretend not to have brought their sister up again, he leans back against the tacky kitchenette counter behind him as he repeats more forcefully, "I said that I miss Tab. You know, our sister, Tabitha. The one who _died_ so that we'd have a shot at stuffing the Devil back in his box."

Sam rolls his eyes. "It's not like I've forgotten about her either, Dean. And it was kind of _me_ that jumped into that hole. So I haven't forgotten what she did for us to make it possible."

"No," Dean irritably argues, temper rising as he slams his half-drank beer bottle down on the worn countertop behind him. "It's like you just don't care that she's gone! That _you're_ back and we don't have the first _clue_ where our sister is or if we'll ever see her again."

Spreading his hands in a placating manner, Sam argues, "Look, of course I care, Dean. But we can't even figure out how _I'm_ back. I don't know how we go about finding Tabitha on top of it. You told me what Cas told you after everything that went down a year ago. She's just…gone. Maybe we need to accept that."

"I can't believe you're even suggesting that. What's _wrong_ with you?" Dean demands.

"Look, whatever, Dean. Right now, we need to focus on this case. On people we _can_ save."

Although Dean decides once more to let the matter of their sister temporarily drop—as he's done several times since Sam suddenly reappeared in his life—he does latch onto one idea.

"We should call Cas."

Sam looks surprised at the suggestion. "You're kidding, right?" He scoffs before deriding the idea. "Dean, I tried. It was the first and second and third thing I did, soon as I got topside. Son of a bitch won't answer the phone."

Seeing no harm in trying, Dean moves to sit on one of the beds. "Well, let's give it a shot. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here."

Still annoyed, Sam comments from the table, "You're an idiot."

"Stay positive," Dean admonishes, eyes still closed.

"Oh, I _am_ positive."

Ignoring the jab, Dean calls out more forcefully, "Come on, Cas! Don't be a dick. We got ourselves a…plague-like situation down here. And…do you…do you copy?" He experimentally opens his eyes and closes them, but doesn't see their angelic friend. Looking around the room, he still sees no sign of the angel.

Gloating, Sam turns to face his older brother, telling him, "Like I said…" he clears his throat to continue. "…the son of a bitch doesn't answer—"

Seeing Dean's eyes suddenly fixed over his shoulder, Sam guesses, "He's right behind me, isn't he?"

As he whips around to stare at the angel, Castiel nods and roughly greets, "Hello."

"'Hello?'" Sam demands.

"Yes," Castiel agrees.

Swiveling back towards Dean, Sam mockingly imitates the angel, "'Hello,'" before continuing to demand in his normal voice, "'Hello?'"

Confused, Castiel asks, "Uh, that is still the term?"

"I spent all that time trying to get through to you, Dean calls once and now it's," he drops his voice into the rough gravel imitation of the angel's again, "'Hello'?!"

"Yes," the angel once more agrees, moving to stand more closely between the brothers.

Still reeling, Sam demands, "So, what, you—you like him better or something?"

Castiel scoffs before turning around and matter-of-factly telling Sam, "Dean and I do share a more profound bond." He then turns to explain to Dean, "I wasn't gonna mention it."

Pushing the strangeness aside, Dean tells the angel, "Cas, I think what he's trying to say is that…he went to Hell for us. I mean, he really took one for the team. You remember that? And then he comes back without a clue, and you can't take five friggin' minutes to give him some answers?"

The angel fires back, "If I had any answers, I might have responded." He whips towards the youngest Winchester to insist, "But I don't know, Sam. We have no idea who brought you back from the cage…or why."

"So…it wasn't God?" Sam guesses, standing from the table to look down at the angel.

"No one's even _seen_ God," Castiel assures them. "The whole thing remains mysterious."

"Well, what about this mystery, Cas," Dean interrupts, bringing the angel's attention back to himself. "Where's our sister? I mean, Sam's been back damn near this whole time. What about Tab? Is she…back?"

Castiel stiffens as he stares at Dean, but looks away before woodenly telling both boys, "She's gone. I told you before; I've searched every plane of Heaven and Hell for her. She's…she's gone."

"I don't accept that," Dean argues, stepping closer until he stops in front of the angel arms crossing defiantly over his chest.

Castiel's eyes jerk back to Dean's as he snaps, "Whether you accept it or not doesn't stop it from being so. I cannot find her. She's…gone."

"How can she just be gone?!" Dean shouts, arms waving emphatically. "It makes no friggin' sense."

"I don't know how. She just is."

"What the hell does that mean?" Sam interjects.

Twisting back to face him and stalking closer, Castiel angrily asks him, "What part of 'I don't know' escapes your understanding?"

Trying to diffuse the situation, Dean tells the angel, "Cas, look, we're just trying to figure out where our sister is. You may not care…" he looks over the angel's shoulder, missing the way the angel again stiffens, but noting that there's no real…fire in his brother's eyes for their dead sister, and wondering to himself if he's the only one that _does_ care about Tabitha's absence. Shaking himself, he continues telling the angel, "Look, I just want Tabitha back. It's not right that she's… And…if Sam calls, you answer. Okay? You wing your ass down here, and you tell him, 'I don't know.' Just because we have some sort of a—a bond or whatever…"

Looking surprised, Castiel asks, "You think I came because _you_ called?" He gestures towards the table with the laptop and jar of locusts. "I came because of this."

Derisively, Dean comments, "Oh, well, it's nice to know what matters,"

As he steps over to the table to see what the angel has on his mind, he once more thinks to himself how much everyone around him has changed in the past year. Even the angel seems more abrupt and uncaring than he'd ever remembered him being. Not to mention all the crazy vibes his little brother has been laying down.

All he can think as he listens to the angel drone on about a civil war in Heaven, is that he'd give anything to get his little sister back. While wondering to himself if things wouldn't be more normal if only for her presence. She'd been like the glue that held them all together and kept them more human. Strangely, he starts to think that she'd somehow had a larger impact even on the angel than he'd realized. In some way, making him more human, too. More grounded.

Right about now, he'd give just about anything to have her back again. Grounding them all.

 

***************

 

Dean wanders through the house belonging to the sister of the victim in their current case, looking for any clues as to why the young woman blew her own brains out.

"I don't understand," he hears the sister telling Sam in the other room as he pauses to look at some papers tacked to the woman's wall. "Why would federal investigators be interested in a suicide? I mean, that woman with the insurance company already said there wouldn't be any further investigations done. She said it was a clear-cut suicide. So no life insurance policy."

Dean's attention is peaked at her comment, and he strays back into the room with the woman and his brother.

"The insurance company has already turned in their findings?" he asks, trying to remember if they'd ever seen an insurance company act so swiftly in a death case before. Especially one so obviously not suspicious. At least to the normal person's point of view.

"Yes," the woman answers, taking a framed picture of her sister off a shelf and carrying it lovingly into the living room. "They said the cops had already ruled it a suicide and after she spoke with me about my sister, she said there was nothing more she could do. The insurance company wasn't going to pay out."

"Huh?" Dean grunts, finding the incident strange, but chalking it up to some insurance broad finally getting her butt out of her office and doing her job for once.

As Sam continues speaking to the woman, he listens only passively, watching his brother more than the woman, considering _him_ to be the current case, just like he and Bobby had agreed. In the past months since his little brother's return and them hunting together again, nothing has felt right about him. And after Sam purposely let him get turned by a vampire weeks back and then lied about it, he's even starting to question whether it's really even his brother at all.

All he knows for certain is that something else came out of that cage with Lucifer. He'd almost convinced himself at one time that it might be Lucifer himself, but that doesn't fit, either.

"You know what a 'tell' is?" Sam suddenly asks the woman, his eyes narrowed coldly on her, nothing of the sensitive kid his brother should have been behind his tone or eyes.

The woman seems startled as well, looking up to ask, "Excuse me?"

"It's a poker term…" Sam explains to her, "…for when you're bluffing." He points to his head, twirling his finger to indicate something the woman had done. "Like what you just did with your hair."

"What are you trying to say?" the woman asks, her defensive hackles rising.

"You're lying," Sam coldly rejoins.

"What?!"

"Tell us what you did to your sister."

The woman swivels in her seat, looking desperately to Dean for help. Seeing the guilt in her gaze, Dean merely looks back, deciding that despite Sam's unusual coldness, to let it all play out. And hopefully learn more about the thing pretending to be his brother.

Finding no help from him, the woman turns back to Sam, her voice trembling as she admits, "Okay. You're right. I was lying. I wanted to tell her, 'I love you. I'm here for you.' Oh, but what came out was…'You're a burden. Just kill yourself.' Who says that?! I-I-I just couldn't stop!"

Dean's heart goes out to the woman when he hears her choked grief, but as he looks at Sam, he sees only a look of gloat on his face at being proven right in pushing the poor woman.

When they are finally able to extricate themselves from the house, Sam is quick to ask him, "See anything in the house?"

"No hex bags, no sulfur, no EMF. You?"

"A tuba and an issue of _Crochet Today_ ," Sam replies. "So, what, already kinda suicidal?"

"Right," Dean agrees, "and then big sis's taxicab confession sends her over the edge. Question is, what made big sis open her big, fat mouth in the first place?"

"Yeah, that _is_ the question."

 

***********

 

Hours later, Dean walks alone into _Harry's House of Horns_. Having been skeeved out enough by Sam's presence for one day, Dean had sent him to the police station and then morgue while Dean went to the dentist office where their latest strange death had taken place after the patient had confessed a multitude of sins to his dentist. Looking through the dentist's office, Dean realized that both of their victims had played horned instruments and had shopped at this particular music store for supplies.

After showing the shopkeeper pictures of the last two victims, the man tells Dean, "Jane and Dr. Conley. I heard. Awful." He shuffles the pictures before handing them back. "What do I have to do with it?"

"Honestly? You're the only thing they have in common." Taking the pictures back, Dean asks, "Did they say anything to you before they, uh…?"

"Sorry. Not really," the little old man replies, walking back behind his counter.

"Right," Dean sighs. "Ah, I was just fishing. Thanks."

He starts to leave, but the old man calls out, "Hey, by the way, how 'bout my horn?"

Baffled, Dean answers, "Sorry?"

"Stolen horn?" the man repeats. "That lady with the newspaper said she was going to write an article about a bunch of recent thefts in town. She said she had friends in the police department and that she'd get them to look into it for me. I just assumed that was why you were here."

Covering his surprise quickly, Dean agrees, "Right. Yeah. We're—we're working on it."

"Well, I hope so. Thing's one-in-a-billion."

Dean had started to turn away again for the door, but at the "one-in-a-billion," stops and comes back to the shopkeeper.

"What makes it one-in-a-billion again?"

"It's a museum piece," the little man explains, moving papers around on his counter, looking for something as he continues explaining, "And near as anyone can tell, about a thousand years old."

The man starts to get frantic as he looks for something.

"What are you looking for?" Dean asks, eyeing the counter suspiciously.

"My paperwork and provenance for the horn. I know I just had it. I was showing it to the nice lady from the newspaper. Now where did I put it?"

"How long ago was she here?" Dean asks, a strange inkling growing in the pit of his stomach.

"She just left before you came in. That's why I was surprised you got here so quickly. She was on the phone when she left, but I never expected you to come in so soon after she walked out." The little man starts frantically looking in drawers under the counter, his desperation palpably growing. He suddenly stops to stare up at Dean with a horrified look of dawning understanding. "You don't think she stole them, do you?"

"What did this woman look like? You get a name?" Dean demands, that unsettling feeling growing at some strange woman beating him to more than one scene of inquiry on this case.

"Average to a bit taller, I guess," the little man supplies, tugging worriedly at his eyebrows. "Dark brown hair. Long. British accent. Chase something or another I think was her name. She was wearing a leather coat and drove one of those motorcycle nuisances. She parked it down the street, but I could still hear the roar of that engine breaking the harmony of my shop."

Dean twists to look in the direction the man points, seeing a woman matching the shopkeeper's description approaching a motorcycle down the street.

"Thanks, man!" Dean tosses over his shoulder, racing out to the sidewalk. As he jogs across the street, he can see the brunette slide the zipper of her coat down. She tugs the corner of a folder forward, and when she's assured it's secured, zips her jacket again as she pulls a helmet over her long brunette curls.

Before Dean can reach her, she fires up the engine of the Ducati bike, and speeds away out of his reach.

"Dammit," he growls, cursing his luck that he'd come on foot after giving Sam the Impala to head to the police department and morgue.

Pulling his phone out, he dials and then barks into the cellphone, "Get your ass down here to that music shop."

" _What's up_?" Sam asks likewise forgoing any pleasantries.

"Remember that lady talking about an insurance woman having already been out to make a determination on her sister's suicide?" He doesn't wait for Sam to answer, forging on to tell him, "I think that bitch's been here, too. I'm pretty sure she snaked evidence that could help us solve this thing."

" _Well, where is she now_?"

"Took off on a motorcycle. I couldn't get to her in time to stop her. Get your ass down here fast."

After waiting on the sidewalk for longer than Dean would consider moving fast, Sam pulls up with Dean's baby.

"Get your ass over," he orders, opening the driver's door and shoving Sam's shoulder to push him across into the passenger's seat.

"Where are we going?" Sam asks, pointing out, "If she's on a motorcycle, this woman could be anywhere by now."

"I don't think so," Dean argues. "She may have beaten us to the sister's house. And she may have beaten me to the music store. But no way she beat you to the police station. 'Cause there's no way she can be in two places at once."

"Good point," Sam agrees, sounding impressed.

Dean ignores the implication that he's somehow not as capable of rational thought, and drives quickly back to the police station across town.

After parking the Impala across the street, he looks for the motorcycle, and not finding it, almost gives up, thinking he'd been wrong after all. Then, he sees the brunette walking down the front steps with another man dressed in a doctor's white lab coat.

"That's Dr. Repas," Sam points out, seeming suddenly intrigued by their mystery woman. "He's the ME."

"And that's our mystery woman," Dean agrees, nodding in their direction. He strains to get a better look at the woman, but she's turned more towards the Doc, laughing at something the older man says.

When the ME finally turns to walk back into the precinct, Dean leans forward in his seat, waiting for her to finally turn towards him. But as she stands in profile to them, she takes her helmet out from under her elbow, surreptitiously removing one of the ME's files from her helmet and stuffing it into her jacket. She tugs her helmet on again and closes the visor before she turns towards them.

Dean starts to open his door to go after her, but Sam's grip on his elbow stops him.

"What are you doing?" he demands.

"What are _you_ doing?" Sam shoots back.

"I'm gonna go kill that bitch," Dean snaps. "You got a problem with that?"

"No." Shaking his head in surprise, Sam asks, "I'm just wondering, why? Why kill _her_?"

Pointing out the window, Dean ticks off his list, "Brunette. English. Likes to steal shit and generally get in our way. Who the hell do you think that is?" At Sam's baffled look, Dean yells, "It's friggin' Bella!"

Sam looks speculatively at the woman as she walks away, rounding the corner to where she'd had her motorcycle tucked into the opening of an alleyway. "She still looks pretty damn good for someone that's supposed to be in Hell."

Scoffing, Dean retorts, "Yeah, well, so do I."

Rolling his eyes, Sam replies, "Come on, Dean. You can't really believe that that woman is Bella. What, just because she's English and a thief?"

"Let me think…yeah!" Dean growls. "Shit, in this car alone, we're batting a thousand on people that by all rights should still be stuck in Hell. So don't tell me it's impossible to get topside again."

"True," Sam agrees, his eyes tracking as the woman on the motorcycle pulls onto the street in front of them. Nodding towards her, Sam tells Dean, "You can kill her if you want, but shouldn't we follow her to wherever she's set up shop? Maybe see about stealing back whatever she stole in the first place?"

Seeing no other choice, Dean throws the Impala into gear, peeling out after the fast moving Ducati as he curses whatever demon somehow let Bella escape.

Both brothers are surprised when they follow the motorcycle through town and to a middle-class residential area. Something very much _not_ Bella's style.

Sam whistles as they watch her swing her leg over the back of the bike in the driveway of a quaint looking, two-story, white house.

At Dean's annoyed look, Sam defends, "What? Just because you want to kill her that means I can't appreciate the long shapely legs on the woman?"

Dean's frown spreads, finding nothing to appreciate about the sight of that woman.

Tucking his favorite Colt 1911 into the waistband of his jeans above his buckle, Dean marches across the street after the brunette just as she lets herself through the front door of the little house.

"What are you planning to do, Dean? Break the door down and just shoot her?" Sam asks jogging to catch up.

Dean pauses to frown at his brother, surprised not to find censor in his words, but merely curiosity.

"No," Dean disagrees. "First, I'm gonna knock on the door. After that, I'm gonna demand back everything she stole. _Then_ , I'm gonna finally kill that woman."

Sam gives an unconcerned shrug, following after Dean as the oldest Winchester pounds impatiently on the door.

"Did you forget your key again, love?" a feminine English voice calls through the door from inside the house, causing Dean to pull his Colt out to the ready.

Still calling out from inside, the woman continues, "Darling, I told you not to use the front door today, park the car in the car park 'round back instead."

She tugs the door open just as Dean levels his colt between her eyes.

Looking down the barrel of the gun, she frowns and growls in an upper-crust British accent, "Oh bloody hell. What are _you_ doing here?"

 


	2. Chapter 2: Jessie's Girl

"Me?!" Dean exclaims. "What the hell are _you_ doing here? And what the hell is with the friggin'," he raises the pitch of his voice to imitate, "' _bloody_ ' accent?"

Eyes narrowing on him, she growls back, "It's called a sodding cover, you twat. You know, so I can bloody well keep from getting nipped by the coppers."

Dean waves it away, annoyed by her continued insistence in using the accent. "Okay. Right now, I don't even care about that. What I want to know is how you're alive and why you didn't _bloody_ tell me, Tabitha Mary Winchester!"

She sneers at the way he imitates her accent, but when his words finally register in her mind, she slowly and soberly asks, "What do you mean? You didn't know I was alive?"

"No! I thought you were dead!" Dean exclaims. After calming himself, he looks her up and down, then glances over his shoulder to say, "You do realize you were staring at our sister's legs, don't you, Sam? That's messed up."

Before Dean can continue, she looks past his shoulder and spots her younger brother. Hands flying to her mouth, she sobs incredulously, "Sam?!"

Shoving past her older brother, she steps out onto the covered porch with them. Sam awkwardly holds his arms out to receive the hug he'd been anticipating. But blinks when he gets a face-full of water thrown at him instead.

"Not a demon," he drolly informs her, hand sloshing the water away as she redeposits a flask he hadn't noticed back into the inner pocket of her leather coat. Before she can move onto another test, he slips out a silver blade, slicing his arm before dramatically displaying the bleeding but otherwise normal wound. "Not a shapeshifter either."

Her face finally crumples as she pulls him down into a hug. Which he stands uncomfortably for on the receiving end.

When she pushes away again, she angrily rounds on her older brother, shoving his shoulder as she shouts without the accent, "How long has he been back?! Why the _hell_ didn't you tell me?"

Rubbing his shoulder, he shouts back, "Why?! Oh, gee, I dunno. Maybe because I _just_ found out that _you're back too_! A little heads up on that would have been nice. You know, a 'Hi. How you doing? How you handling the _deaths of all your remaining family_?!'"

She falls back a step in surprise at his angry shout. "I assumed Castiel would have told you," she comments in a soft voice.

That really gets Dean's attention. In shock, he repeats, "'Castiel?!' Cas knew? You've been in contact with that feathered asshole this whole time?!"

"Well, no. I just saw him that night. You know, after everything. We haven't spoken since or seen each other since. But Bobby knows, too. I mean, he and I have never talked or anything either, but shortly after I stopped to settle down in town here, _that_ showed up sitting outside my apartment." She jerks her thumb over her shoulder to indicate down the street where her mustang sits. Newly painted purple now with a black stripe, but still clearly the same one she and Bobby rebuilt together years before.

"We haven't spoken, but every few months I see him covertly driving by at night, checking up on me I guess." She pauses before a scowl of anger returns. "Wait a minute. How long has Sam been back? Did Bobby know about that?"

"Yeah, and kept _that_ from me, too," Dean snaps visibly fuming at all that had been kept from him in the past year plus.

"That _sonofabitch_ ," Tabitha growls, digging into her jean pocket for her phone, intent on giving the older hunter a piece of her mind for leaving her in the dark about her younger brother being alive. "I can't believe he never told me that Sam was out, too," she grumbles to herself punching buttons on her phone.

Dean snatches the cellphone out of her hand. "Not nice when people keep important things like that from you, is it?" he snarks.

Hands on her hips, Tabitha defends, "Look, I had no idea you didn't know. I figured Castiel would at least tell you."

"First time I saw Cas after that night was a few months ago. And the bastard said you were gone. That you were dead," he snaps, furious with the angel lying to him.

Tabitha rolls her eyes. "Well, I don't know why he said I was dead, but it isn't like he could find me either." She pulls her leather coat sleeve back as she jingles the bracelet on her wrist. "Because I didn't _want_ him to."

"Why?" Sam asks in confusion.

Eyes darting away, Tabitha hurriedly says, "I just didn't want him to, okay? I needed to start over. After losing you, Sam… I just needed a fresh start away from it all."

Dean scoffs as he looks around the suburban neighborhood. "Looks like you got it. But why the hell didn't you come to me soon as you got back? I was alone grieving you the _both_ of you that whole year. I spent all that time alone trying to figure out how to get Sam sprung from the cage. Trying to figure out _what_ even happened to you, and how to get you back, too. A 'Hey, how you doing?' would have been nice. When the hell, and _how_ the hell did you even get back?"

Tabitha looks guiltily away. "How…I don't know. I just showed up on the road, watching the Impala drive away later that night. Cas was there, and told me what happened." She wraps her arms around herself before meeting his eyes once more and confiding, "I did go to see you about a month or two after that. Once I'd kinda pulled myself together. But you were with Lisa by then. Starting over. You looked so happy. I didn't want to get in the way of that. Not when the truth was that I was still so messed up over losing…uh, losing Sam and all. So I left. And I started over, too. I meant to go see you again. But…I got out of it all. The hunting. And I just…I wanted to stay out, you know? I've got a normal life here. I just want to hang onto that."

"A normal life where you're pretending to be a Brit?" Sam skeptically asks. "Sure sounds real normal."

Tabitha shrugs. "Figured if I ever got into trouble with the law or something, it'd take them longer trying to go through Interpol to figure out that it's an assumed identity."

Swiping a hand under her nose, Tabitha rolls her shoulders back and tells her brothers with determination, "Look, I'm ecstatic to know you're both alive and well, but like I said, I started over here. No hunting. So I'd like to get back to my nice boring life now." She steps back into the doorway, one hand on the door as she starts to shut it.

"The one where you run around investigating suspicious deaths and stealing evidence to compile?" Dean pointedly asks, shouldering into the doorway.

She sighs, but reaches further into the entryway, grabbing the stack of folders on the small end table to thrust out at Dean. "Right. Well, you might as well take them now. Just because I was out doesn't mean I'm an idiot. I knew something was up, so I was just laying some groundwork to send to Bobby so he could send whatever capable hunter was in the area to investigate. See if there really was a case here and take care of it."

"Why would he send someone else when there's an experienced hunter right here in town?" Sam demands, giving her a narrowed look.

Hand on the door to close it again, Tabitha pointedly reminds them, "Because I'm out."

Dean's hand shoots out to stop the door from closing forcing it open. "This is _far_ from over, Tabitha. There's still a shitload we need to discuss about all of this."

Sam breaks in with, "Not to mention there's some serious shit going on in this town. The people dying kind of serious."

Before Tabitha can bite off the angry retort on her tongue, they all here the sounds of a back door opening behind her and a man calling out, "Chase? You around here somewhere, babe? Thought I still saw your bike out front."

Tabitha begins trying to frantically shut the door against Dean's hand forcing it open. "You two need to leave _now_!" she hastily snarls.

"Oh, hell no!" Dean exclaims, forcing the door back open. "Who the hell is _that_?!" he hisses, pointing emphatically through the house where the voice came from.

Just as a man in a rumpled suit comes around into view of the living room, the brothers witness their sister's entire countenance shift as she once more becomes her British persona.

Pleasantly, she turns to greet the man, leaning into him as he stops beside her. In turn, he wraps an arm around her waist and kisses her cheek in a careless but loving fashion.

"Welcome home, luv," she greets, smiling and softly kissing his cheek in return as her arm snakes around his waist as well. With her free hand, she gestures at the dumbfounded boys still standing on the porch, explaining to the man beside her, "These chaps just stopped by for a chat, darling. Missionary sorts I think. But they were just on their way."

The man narrows his eyes on them, his free hand pushing his blazer back from his hip to prominently display the detective's badge and gun hanging from his belt.

"Boys, I know my girl is the polite sort and doesn't understand the laws of this country that well, but if she asks you to leave, you can't keep soliciting here."

Both Sam and Dean's jaws had dropped at the sight of the cop with his arm wrapped around their sister, but Dean's face turns sour as he tries to force a smile. With forced cheer, he responds, "Gosh, isn't our sister just the _funniest_ little thing. Strange sense of humor on her. We're not Jehovah's Witnesses or anything crazy like that. Just her brothers, coming to check up on her."

The man looks startled at the news, his arm loosening around her as he leans back to question, "Brothers? I thought you had only the one brother who died? That there wasn't any other family left."

Thinking fast, Tabitha responds, "Well, I _had_ thought my little brother was gone, Jessie. They just stopped by to tell me that Sam was all right. He was, oh, what's that term you army blokes use? MIA? But he was found alive and well. Tip top shape now, really."

"Oh," the man—Jessie—hums, looking back at the boys speculatively. Lowly, he reminds her, "You never said you had another brother, though, Chase. Just mentioned the, ah, one you thought you'd lost."

Cheeks coloring, she tells him, "It's complicated, dear. Dean and I hadn't spoken in some time."

Trying to focus on the brothers again, Jessie asks, "So, I take it you were you both army men as well?"

Exchanging glances, Dean assures him, "Nah, not army. Marines. Uh, ooh-rah." He chuckles uncomfortably before addressing the man. "So, you're Jessie? Our sister didn't tell us she had a man in her life. Especially one that has _keys_ to her place."

Jessie clears his throat before responding, "Well, it's actually _our_ place. We just moved in together three weeks ago."

" _Really_?" Dean asks, obvious censor working into his voice. "She didn't mention that she was shacking up with some guy."

"Because it's none of your business if I shack up with a bloke," she snips back.

Looking uncomfortably between the two, Jessie clears his throat and attempts to change the topic once more. Focusing on the brothers, he asks, "So, you guys are American?"

At his obvious confusion, Tabitha rushes to explain, "They grew up here in the states with our father. A Yank, too. Our mum was English, so I grew up with her over there."

"I see," Jessie hums, slight frown remaining.

When an uncomfortable silence falls, Tabitha rushes to fill it by saying, "Well, it was nice of you boys to come round with this brilliant news, but Jessie and I do have things to get back to, and I'm sure you've got things to get to as well."

She eyes the folders in Dean's hands with a pointed look, but Dean smiles with false cheer and argues, "Nah. Where would we have to go that's more important? It seems we've got _a lot_ to catch up on with each other, dear sweet sister."

Smiling just as sickly sweet, she reminds him, "I'm sure you've got places to be, Dean. We shan't hinder your schedule, dear brother."

"Schedule's wide open for you…Chase."

Somehow seeming oblivious to the heated undertones of their words, Jessie smiles widely, holding his hand out towards Dean as he says, "That's great. I was hoping you guys could stick around. We're actually having a party tonight. Sort of celebrating moving in together with some friends and colleagues. We'd love for you guys to come. Chase could use some family around. Plus, there's something I'd like to ask you later, Dean."

Dean grabs the other man's hand, clamping down in a bone-crushing grip as he assures the man, "Oh, there's no place else I'd rather be. Believe me; I've got a few questions for you, too, Jessie."

* * *

"So why is it you never really talk about your brothers? I had to drag out of you that you'd lost your younger brother after all the nightmares, but you never even mentioned that you still had an older brother. Or that they were both American."

Jessie wags his knife back and forth as he speaks, pausing in slicing cuts of meat for the coming party.

"Sorry, darling," she huffs, her knife pounding more forcefully against the cutting board as she chops vegetables. "Didn't realize you were looking for a sodding breakdown of my family tree. And what does it matter what blooming nationality my brothers are?"

Jessie turns back to his own cutting board with a slight frown. "I was just wondering why you haven't talked about them before. Or anything about your past, really."

Tabitha sets her own knife down forcing herself into a false calm. Then, she moves to stand behind Jessie as she wraps her arms around his waist and presses her nose between his shoulder blades. Turning her head slightly when he drops on one hand to cover hers at his waist, she tells him, "Sorry for my brashness, dear. I just don't much care for dwelling on the past. What happened happened. But I'm here with you now. And that's all that truly matters."

He strokes the backs of her hands with his fingers a few times, fondly assuring her, "Love you, Chase."

"Me, too," she whispers into his back.

They pass a few quiet moments like that before Jessie returns to his cutting. Still seeming determined to get answers, he asks her, "So, what do your brothers do for a living? They didn't really have the appearance of still being in the corp. I know service men get into all sorts of fields after their tours are done, but they don't have the look of having gotten into the police force like I did when I was done."

Tabitha snorts at the notion of her brothers joining the police force. "Police? Not bloody likely."

Smiling briefly at that thought, she releases her hold on Jessie, returning to her cutting board as she struggles with what to tell him. Deciding that she hasn't got a clue what lie is best to give, she settles for answering vaguely, "Bollocks, who knows what they're doing today. Those two have done a smidge of everything I do believe."

After another few minutes of heavy silence, Jessie asks, "Are you upset that I invited your brothers to the barbecue?"

Plastering on false cheer, she assures him while chopping, "Goodness, why so ever would you think that, love?"

Setting his knife down, Jessie moves to stand behind her, his arms slipping over hers as he helps her chop vegetables. Leaning down behind her, he whispers into her ear, "I'll admit to being generally clueless when it comes to women. But I _am_ learning you pretty well. And when you start throwing in lots of extra and unnecessary words, you're not happy about something."

She sighs and leans back against him, giving up chopping vegetables since his hands covering hers only hinder the process. "I haven't seen my brothers in a long time is all," she explains in a roundabout way.

Realizing that she isn't going to expound further, Jessie tells her, "I just want you to know that you can have me _and_ your family. It doesn't have to be either or."

"That so?" she questions, smiling to herself as he rubs his nose against the back of her neck.

Suddenly, he reaches forward, shoving the cutting board and vegetables across the counter. Before she can fully object to her work being scattered, he grabs her by the hips, turning her, and lifting her to sit on the edge of the counter.

"Shite!" she exclaims, a giggle working in despite her annoyance at some of the vegetables spilling onto the floor. "What _are_ you doing? Have you gone daft? We're trying to get ready for this sodding party."

She leans back a bit to study him, taking in his closely trimmed brown hair, the dark eyes surrounded by deep Mediterranean skin. As she strokes the strong line of his square jaw, she teases him, "You really are too pretty to be a cop."

Laughing, he tells her, "Gee, thanks, I think. And you're much too sassy to be a bar maid."

As he moves closer, she pushes him away, reminding him, "The party."

"Plenty of time for that," he informs her, sliding between her knees and tugging her chest up against his. Leaning close, he whispers against her mouth, "And plenty of time for this."

After sharing a slow, leisurely kiss, he pulls back to explain. "Thought I best get that out of the way before your brothers show up to the party. I'll probably have to settle for groping you a little less while their around," he adds with a wink.

She snorts and pushes him back once more so she can gather up her scattered work. "Bugger that. If you don't want my brother to decide to make it his mission in life to hunt you down and string you up by your bollocks, you'd best not be letting on that we really _are_ shagging."

"Your brother sounds protective. I look forward to learning more about him."

With a snort, Tabitha assures him, "Oh, it's sure to be an interesting party."

* * *

Almost as soon as Sam and Dean are escorted by the woman that met them at the front door to the backyard, Sam snags a beer and begins tipping back.

"Dude, what are you doing?" Dean demands in disbelief.

Looking startled, Sam answers, "Having a beer? What? Are _you_ telling me I shouldn't have a beer? It's a party, Dean. Lighten up."

"It's a party that the douchebag shacking up with our sister is throwing. We're not here to have fun. We're here to figure out what the hell is going on with her," Dean growls back eyes darting around at the people gathered in what might have passed for a spacious backyard, if not for the sheer number of people milling about making it seem crowded.

"Hey! You guys made it," Jessie cheerfully greets, walking over to shake both of the brothers' hands. After shaking Dean's hand, he holds it for a moment, asking him, "Now, I'm not sure if I got it straight from Chase or not, but you're Dean, right? The older one?"

"That's me," Dean replies with a forced, tight-lip smile.

Taking Sam's hand, he continues, "That must make you the…well…rather large, little brother Sam."

"Sure," Sam agrees, releasing Jessie's hand and taking another drink, seeming completely uninterested in the mission of grilling their sister's new guy.

"I see Cheryl got you a drink at the door, Sam. What about you, Dean? You look like a beer in the bottle kind of man. Can I get you anything in particular?"

"No thanks, man. Don't feel like drinking tonight," Dean replies, crossing his arms over his chest. Before Jessie can step away, Dean begins questioning him. "So, Jessie, how long you been banging my little sister."

Jessie's eyes shoot up at that, a disbelieving snort coming from him before he says, "Well, that's kind of private there, Dean. But we've been dating for the better part of a year."

"Really? 'Cause I just don't see her dating a cop." He looks around the yard, sneering slightly at all the people he can tell with one glance work at the police department, too. Getting in the way of hunters like him.

Sliding his hands into his pockets, Jessie rocks back on his heels, telling Dean, "Well, not hard to see what side you fall on."

"Side?" Dean repeats in surprise.

Shrugging, Jessie explains, "It's always seemed to me that those who get out of the service either stick with service jobs of some kind, cops, firemen, et cetera. Or they go the other direction. Have a real hatred for any authority. Probably got enough of it in the military." Crossing his arms over his chest, Jessie raises an eyebrow as he says, "Me, I went into the academy immediately after two tours in Baghdad. But I'm not really surprised you boys buck authority. Where'd you two serve?"

"Hell," Dean grumbles, glancing back at Sam who had begun to wander off, perusing the food choices instead of their current quandary.

"Okay," Jessie draws out, absently noting Sam's disinterest too. "I get it. Rather not talk about it. That's fine. I'm not here to press."

"Then why are you here?"

"Excuse me?" Jessie repeats in confusion.

"What are you doing here with my sister? You're a friggin' cop. You think your lifestyle is what she should have in her life?"

Misinterpreting his words, Jessie rushes to assure him, "Look, I love your sister. I'd die to protect her. Nothing of my work will ever come home to harm her. Besides, this ain't exactly a thriving metropolitan area. Life isn't usually that dangerous here."

"Usually," Dean points out, leaning closer to add, "Except for all the wackos dying around here."

Jessie's whole face tightens with his frown. "Excluding the man that dentist killed, they've all been suicides. And how do you know about those deaths? They mean something to you?"

Dean leans back, nonchalantly replying, "Naw. Just like to know what's going on around my sister. What kind of danger might be anywhere near her."

"And you think her dating a cop is too dangerous," Jessie surmises.

"Brother, you got it all wrong," Dean laughs. "She could chew you up and spit you out without breaking a sweat. Ain't her I worry couldn't keep up. But I've got serious doubts you could keep up as a beat cop on Sesame Street."

Jessie's face brightens to red, but he visibly holds himself back, forcing a calm projection as he tells Dean, "You're good at pushing people's buttons. Know just how to drive a person to any emotion you want I can see. Guess I shouldn't have been surprised Chase never wanted to talk about family. And why she was so broken when I came along. If you've always treated her this way, it's no wonder she was so fragile until I came along and started shoring her up again."

Dean throws his head back with laughter. When he finally contains himself, he tells Jessie, "If you think there's _anything_ about my sister that's fragile, you don't know a damn thing about her, man. Not really. And I almost feel sorry for you. She's a lot of things. But fragile's never been one of them. Not even when she's been broken. And if you think I'm trying to hurt her by saying any of this to you, you don't have the first clue about me, either."

"I love her," Jessie stubbornly insists.

"You don't know the first thing about her," Dean sneers in return. "You won't last."

Chest puffing, Jessie indignantly tells him, "You're the one without a clue. I intend to be around a long time. I'm going to—"

Dean harshly cuts him off already knowing what disastrous thing the man is going to say, "It ain't gonna happen, man. Give up that pipe dream now. Save yourself some heartache. 'Cause there's got to be some part of you that knows this ain't really gonna last."

Before the two can continue their posturing, Tabitha suddenly appears, insinuating herself between them.

Sliding under one of Jessie's arms and gripping one of Dean's elbows, she says, "Boys, boys, boys. Cheer up, mates. Whatever's got your knickers in a twist, it's time to unbunch them fellas. I'm not sure what you boys have been discussing, but this is a party. Time to put away the sour looks and talk and have some nosh instead."

Jessie bends down to kiss the top of her head, telling her, "You're right, babe. I should check on the grill anyway. I left Johnny in charge and too long on his own and he'll burn all the meat."

Before he steps away, he tells her, "Come over when you get a chance, we should say a few words to welcome everyone to the party." He drops another quick kiss to her cheek, telling her, "Love you, Chase."

"Me, too," she smiles in return. "Be 'round momentarily, darling."

As soon as he's out of earshot, Tabitha whips around to smack Dean in the shoulder, lowly hissing, "You arse! I don't know what you were telling him, but it looked pretty dodgy to everyone else here, so lay off, you ponce. If you can't fake pleasant for the party, then piss off."

"Would you drop the accent? You're freaking me out," Dean complains, rubbing his shoulder, and thinking to himself that there is indeed nothing fragile about his sister.

Hissing even softer, she reminds him, "Because to everyone here, I'm a bleeding Brit. I'm trying to stay below the radar, Dean. And since half of these gents are coppers, I don't need them overhearing a changed accent and getting inquisitive!"

"Yeah, that's another thing," Dean points out, grabbing her elbow and pulling her closer. "A cop?! Not only are you shacked up with some guy, you're shacked up with a friggin' cop?! Don't you think _that's_ a little above the radar?"

"Shite. I know what I'm doing, Dean. I don't need your nagging," she growls back, jerking her elbow away before looking around and smiling pleasantly to hide their argument.

When she starts walking away, he tells her, "Oh, no. We're not done yet. Not by a long shot. We still need to talk about how you got back and what you've been doing for the past year and however many months."

"Brilliant," she sarcastically hisses. "Let's finish it now. I've no bloody idea how I got back. Just that I am. And for the past year or so, I've been living my life. Which is what I bloody well intend to continue doing right now."

This time she does stomp away before he can stop her. And as he watches, he witnesses her once more donning the bright happy persona everyone at the party seems to know and respond to, several greeting her pleasantly as she makes her way to Jessie.

Dean watches for a few more minutes. Brooding silently as he watches the performance his sister gives for not only Jessie, but for the whole crowd.

As Jessie calls for everyone's attention and the din lessens, Dean looks around for Sam. Failing that, he sighs and grabs a beer from a nearby open cooler.

"We just wanted to thank everyone so much for coming," Jessie tells the crowd, pulling Tabitha into his side as he addresses their guests. "Now, some of you know Chase, and some of you from the department haven't had the pleasure yet, but this is a party to celebrate us moving in together finally, and I just wanted to say that I couldn't be happier that she agreed to move in with me." Jessie pauses and looks through the crowd, eyes settling briefly on Dean before he continues, "Matter of fact, there's something else I've been waiting for this party to do…" He glances down at the woman tucked into his side, but hesitates as he looks down into her puzzled face looking back.

When he glances up at Dean again, the oldest Winchester slowly shakes his head, drawing a line across his throat, more in promise than in threat.

Jessie coughs and stutters before saying, "I just-I just wanted to say that I'm a lucky bastard that such an amazing woman agreed to move in with me."

The people milling about applaud at his finish, a few of the rowdier cops in the back cat-calling and letting out wolf-whistles as one shouts from the back, "Where do I get a girl like her?"

Smiling with good humor, Tabitha answers, "Apparently you stalk your bartender until you get up the courage to ask her out." As the crowd laughs in return, she tacks on, "Or rather, drink up your courage and then mumble something incoherent about boxes when she says you're knackered and need a cab ride home."

Jessie's face tinges with embarrassment as his fellow cops howl with laughter. But he plays along, explaining to her and the crowd, "That's not exactly what I was trying to say."

"Really, dear?" she laughs, poking him in the side. "It was awfully hard to understand while you were sloshing your drink around and slurrin'."

Laughing even harder, Jessie tells them all, "I was trying my best pick-up line."

"Quite?" Tabitha laughs in question. "What did that have to do with boxes?"

Shaking his head, Jessie says, "You said I was drunk, or pissed, I believe, and I was trying to say, 'I'm not drunk. I'm intoxicated by your beauty.'"

Amidst the awes of the women and the uproar from the men, a woman asks, "Did you know then that you were going to date him, Chase?"

"Blimey no," Tabitha laughs. "But I knew he was done drinking for the night."

"So how'd you get her to say yes to you?" another man calls out.

Chest puffing and shoulders rolling back, Jessie explains, "Women can't resist a knight in shining armor coming to their rescue."

Thoroughly disgusted by the little performance his sister is helping her cop boyfriend put on, Dean slams back the rest of his beer, shuddering at the way his sister plays to the crowd and times her words and the story with him to hold the audience captive. Nothing in her behavior or the adoring looks she gives the man beside her are his sister. Nothing of it feels…real.

As their little standup routine continues, Dean whispers, "Castiel, you ain't been answering my calls, but I need you to get your ass down here. It's Tabitha. We found her. But she's not…something's wrong, Cas."

Before the words finishing leaving his mouth, the angel appears beside him, eyes darting around the area.

"What's wrong? Where is she?" the angel demands.

Surprised by his sudden appearance and intense expression, Dean points towards the front of the crowd where Tabitha and Jessie stand near a few gathered backyard grills.

"She's…here," Castiel trails off, staring at her as Tabitha continues telling the crowd her tale.

"So there I am, knackered from a long day, closing up the back of the pub when this tosser grabs me from behind. And he's yelling that he wants all the money I've got." Tabitha pauses to give a theatrical shiver of fear that Dean can see for fake from a mile away. "Bloke didn't realize apparently we only do cash drops on busy nights and Tuesdays are _not_ busy nights."

Jessie pulls her closer as she shivers again, playing up the white knight card to its fullest as he tells the crowd. "Well, I hadn't let the taxi take me home yet. Drunk or not, I was determined to get this beauty's number."

Laughing now, Tabitha butts in to add, "He'd only been coming 'round the pub for three weeks working up the courage to ask me."

"But I did get my courage up," Jessie argues. "So I come into the alley when I know she'll be closing up, and I see this perp coming up behind her. What else could I do other than valiantly swoop in to the rescue?"

The women in the crowd are eating out of his hand and even the men nod appreciatively. Until Tabitha points out with a grin, "By valiantly swoop in, he of course means stumble down the alley, throw a punch at the bloke and miss, but throw himself off balance so badly he stumbles and takes the would-be robber down to the ground as he momentarily passes out."

Chuckling at the uproarious laughter, Jessie points out, "Drunk or not, my training in the academy must have kicked in. Because the next thing I knew, I was pushing up off the pavement and the guy was knocked out and in handcuffs."

An older, portly man with a shirt straining at the buttons across his belly laughs as he calls out to Jessie, "So _that's_ how you managed to arrest Leo Durant? Only you could land a career advancing arrest, _and_ get the girl, all while drunk. You're lucky you were off duty and that we decided to promote you even though you were in the bottle that night, Thompson."

Ducking his head, Jessie tells the man, "Don't I know it, sir."

Some more jokes and ribbing pass back and forth, but Dean finally notices that the angel beside him hasn't moved or spoken since he first arrived.

"Cas?" he asks, nudging the angel. "What's your deal, man?"

"He is not worthy of even her presence," the angel hisses.

Eyebrows furrowing, Dean replies, "Well, I agree man, but right now, I'm more interested in figuring out what's going on with _her_." He nods towards Tabitha, following her with his eyes when he spots her breaking away from Jessie and the main gathering around the grills, carrying some empty plates inside the little two-story house. "How the hell did you not realize she was still alive? And had been this whole time. You said she was dead."

"I said she was gone," the angel corrects, not bothering to look at Dean.

When he looks back to his side again to argue with Castiel, he finds the angel has vanished.

"Sonofabitch," he hisses to himself.

* * *

Hearing a soft footstep behind her, Tabitha calls out over her shoulder, "I'll be right out, Jessie. Just getting the last of these onions sliced up for anyone what wants them on sandwiches and the like."

"I am not Jessie."

In the blink of an eye, Tabitha inhales a sharp, shocked breath, causing her body to jerk and her finger to slip on the onion, the tip of her forefinger falling directly under her blade as she chops.

But she's too shocked to utter a word of surprise or even pain, instead, whipping around to stare up at the angel directly behind her. One of her hands tightly grips the knife, pressing it to her side like a lifeline. The other hangs limply by her leg, blood trickling down her fingers to split-splat on the tile floors.

Holding her stare, Castiel steps closer, reaching out blindly for her hand and unerringly finding it. As he grips it between their torsos, she can feel the familiar swell of magic that accompanies his healing touch. She shudders in response as his fingers continue caressing hers, long after the cut has been healed and the damage erased.

"You're here," she finally whispers, unable to say anything else.

"Yes."

Tabitha remains rooted in place, unable to move. Neither forward, nor backward. Neither to him, nor away from him.

"Why?" she raggedly whispers, feeling like she can't draw more than shallow pants of air into her suddenly oxygen starved lungs.

"For you."

With his single utterance, he steps forward, his chest slamming against hers as he threads a hand into the dark brown locks of her hair. Knotting a fist in her loose curls, he drags her lips up to his, devouring ever bit of her with the ruthlessness of someone denied the basic necessities of life for too long.

There's no conscious thought as her body responds to him, knife clattering to the floor as her arms slide around his shoulders with the comfort and ease of a dance well known and desperately missed.

When his hands slide down to cup the backs of her thighs, lifting her onto the counter behind her, she readily opens her knees, making space for him even as his hand slides under her lightweight burgundy sweater to trail up her spine and his lips trail down to her neck.

As she gasps with the sensations and her back arches in response to his touch, she suddenly hears a voice possessively hiss across her mind, _Mine_.

The sensation of hearing the angel's true voice, though both comforting and achingly familiar, still shocks Tabitha back into the reality of the moment. Back into the reality of just what she's doing.

Shoving at his chest, she pulls her sweater back down, blinking back tears of realization that only hours before, Jessie had been in this very same position, standing in this very same spot at this counter. Though eliciting decidedly more tepid responses from her.

Slipping off the counter, she stares at the angel's chest instead of meeting his eyes as she tells him, "Dammit, Castiel. You can't be here."

"Why?"

Her eyes snap up to his at his completely perplexed question.

"'Why?'" she hisses incredulously in return. "Because I'm with someone else now. We can't do this. I'm _not_ a cheater." She wonders to herself if her words are for Castiel's benefit, or to convince herself.

His head cants to the side and he frowns while telling her, "He is hardly a match worthy of you. Not a weak human that requires _you_ to save him, and then allows himself to think that _he_ was _your_ savior."

Shoving at his chest, she tells him, "That's none of your business, Castiel. He believes what he needs to believe about that night. It doesn't matter anyway. I didn't ask for your opinion."

Squaring her shoulders, she tells him, "I didn't ask for you to be here at all."

"You shouldn't be with him," the angel again insists, his words become deeper and more heated.

"Then who should I be with?!" Tabitha shouts, bordering on near hysteria at being so close to the angel after so long apart.

When Castiel opens and closes his mouth without a word coming out, she stalks closer, her hand striking out and slapping the side of his face before she can pull herself back.

"Screw you, Castiel. You're the one that ended it! I said that I…" she chokes on the words, unable voice that painful confession again, her gut twisting at the mere thought of repeating them. In a broken whisper, she repeats, "You-you're the one that ended it."

"I didn't end it. You walked away," he reminds her, voice low and eyes, dark with laden emotion.

"You didn't stop me," she replies in a ragged whisper. With a soft snort, she explains, "You may have ended it without actually saying a word, but you _did_ end it, Castiel, sure as I'm standing here today. There was nothing else left for me to do, other than walking away."

Castiel frowns as he recalls that fateful night.

* * *

_A year and some months ago…_

_Castiel stands on the cold blacktop, watching as the taillights of Dean's Impala fade into the darkness._

_He understands Dean's anger with God after what happened, he supposes anger might be what he feels, as well. It had been hard enough trying to understand emotions when she had still been there to teach them to him. But now that she's gone, he sees no point in trying to analyze or understand them. Or even to feel them._

_But he'd made her a promise. That he look out for her brothers and try to set things right. And knowing the anarchy raging in Heaven, he realizes that to protect Dean from the angels that will likely have a grudge against the remaining Winchester, he must return to bring some order to Heaven. If chaos reigns, there will be no protecting him. Perhaps he can even teach the other angels one of the many lessons she taught to him: choice. Free will._

_As he turns to face the other direction, he stops to shield his eyes from the sudden blinding light, and stares in shock at the woman now standing before him on the rain-slick blacktop._

_Tabitha shakes her head to clear her vision from the blinding light, blinking when she suddenly finds herself in darkness._

_Tugging her leather coat tighter around herself, she asks the angel in front of her, "Am I dead?"_

_Castiel takes a halting step closer, hesitantly brushing the backs of his fingers down her cheek. "No," he croaks in response, shocked at the sight of her before him. He'd scoured Heaven for her, even dared the depths of Hell. She had truly seemed to disappear. He'd found the talisman he'd once given her in the clearing where she'd said "yes" to Azrael. But only it and the strange ring she'd given him were still there. He'd no longer felt any connection to her. All of his Grace returned to him with his resurrection. But she had well and truly…vanished._

_Oblivious to his swirling thoughts, she desperately asks, "Did they do it? Did they put Lucifer back in his cage?"_

_"Yes," he woodenly answers, "Michael as well."_

_Tears spring to her eyes as she shakes her head. "Then Sam did it. And he's…he's really gone?"_

_"Yes."_

_"What about Dean?"_

_Castiel glances over his shoulder at the disappearing taillights._

_Sighing in relief when she sees her answer, Tabitha replies, "Good. Thank god for that at least."_

_Shaking her head, she laughs a little unsteadily and steps towards him, grabbing his trench coat as she excitedly whispers, "But we did it, Cas. We really did it. It's finally over."_

_In her happiness, she stands on her toes, pressing her lips to the angel's, happily kissing lips she's kissed hundreds of times before._

_Yet, tears fill her eyes as she lowers to her heels and steps back from the angel, a hand covering her mouth to hold back the sob now lodged in her throat._

_"That wasn't like any other kiss we've shared," she tells him in an anguished whisper from behind her hand._

_He stares at her, not reaching out, no emotion marking his face._

_Closing her eyes against the ache in her chest, she tells him, "That tasted like goodbye."_

_"What does goodbye taste like?" he finally asks, his voice low and rumbling. None of the warmth that often works into his voice when he speaks to her present now._

_Wrapping her other arm around herself, and lowering her hand from her face, she opens her eyes, heedless of the tears spilling down her cheeks as she whispers one excruciating word, "Empty. Empty."_

_Part of her wants to blame the angel for making her love him. Or for him not loving her._

_But she knows that isn't fair. She not naïve, and never has been. She's never fooled herself. She'd always known that what they had would have to end one day. It couldn't last. He was an angel. She was human. And this was no fairytale. It didn't end with happily ever after. It just…ended._

_"I just wasn't expecting it to be today," she whispers to herself._

_"I can take you to your brother," he stiffly offers._

_"No," she assures him in a broken but determined voice. "I can take care of myself. I've always been good at that."_

_She turns and starts walking down the highway in the opposite direction her brother had driven before she pauses to look back at the angel._

_"Why?" she calls out to him. At his frown, she angrily shouts, "Why does this have to be goodbye?!"_

_"I must return to Heaven," he offers simply._

_She opens her mouth to remind him that she'd opened her heart and soul to him before sacrificing herself, but closes it when she realizes that his kiss had said everything the angel couldn't. As seemed to be the normal course for their relationship. Their lips had always been able to say what their mouths couldn't._

_Without another word, she turns and continues down the lonely highway._

_Castiel watches for a few moments more, before he disappears for the last time._

* * *

"I may have walked away that night," she reminds him, sniffling slightly, "but you'd already left before I got up the nerve to walk away."

"He's not worthy of you," Castiel suddenly argues.

Anger surges forward in her emotions, causing her to lunge back towards him as she shoves his chest, forcing him back a step. "Goddamn you, Castiel. Who are you to judge? You have no _right_ in the love affairs of my life anymore. And at least he's honest with me. He _loves_ me. I never have to worry whether he'll be there when I get home at night. He'll _always_ be there for me. Steady. Reliable. I never have to wonder what he feels or thinks about me." She sniffles again, the act robbing some of her anger as she more sedately insists, "He's a _good_ man. Better than I deserve."

"He's not a shadow of what you deserve," Castiel fiercely insists.

"I deserve a shot at normal," she whispers, looking down. "At not being hurt so badly again. Walking away from you…it nearly killed me. I can't go through something like that again."

She turns away, gathering her platter with onions as Castiel whispers to her back, "Heaven was in chaos. I _had_ to return."

"And so you did," she tells the platter in front of her. "You made your priorities well known."

"I intended to come back for you," he suddenly whispers.

Tabitha stills, grabbing the edge of the countertop on either side of herself to remain upright. For several minutes, she can't speak, can only listen to his words ringing in her ears. But he says no more than that. Offers no explanation for why he didn't come back, finally urging her to speak again.

"But you never did," she finally tells him, still staring down at the rings of purple and white onions.

"I couldn't find you. You…you were hidden from me," he tries half-heartedly explaining.

Snorting at his weak attempt, she points out, "That's a crock and you know it. You could have found me if you'd really put your mind to it. Bobby knew where I was, and you could have easily read his mind. But you never tried to find me. And you never came."

Gathering the platter, she starts past him, only to be stopped by his hand on her elbow. "I'm here now," he points out.

"Why?" she wonders, looking up at him, willing him to tell her _something_.

When he has no answer, she jerks her elbow back, telling him, "It's over. I'm with Jessie now."

"You don't love him," Castiel stubbornly insists.

Eyes narrowing on him, she snaps, "Of course I do. He's a good man."

"Then say it," the angel challenges.

She opens her mouth, and then slams it shut before repeating, "He's a good man. And he loves me."

They both turn when they hear Jessie calling for Chase from outside.

Doggedly, Castiel still questions, "Why him?"

Brushing past him, she whispers in return, "I told you once before, I don't do lonely well."

By the time she returns to the party, her smile is glued back in place, and she eagerly waves off Jessie's brief concern, assuring him that the moisture in her eyes is nothing but the onions getting to her.

Dean joins the angel as they stand next to the house, watching the spectacle of Tabitha again donning the mask of Chase. She happily stands on Jessie's arm, helping him regal the crowd with stories of the cases he'd worked since making detective, and how her sleuth-like mind—due to her love of mystery novels—had helped him close more than one case he'd been stumped on.

"That bozo hasn't got a clue who she really is," Dean tells the angel beside him. "I can't believe he actually seems to like this placid, doe-eyed little damsel she seems to be playing for him. Asshole doesn't even realize what prize he's actually got standing beside him playing friggin' Stepford wife."

Castiel jerks to look at Dean. "Has their courtship progressed to marriage?"

"What?" Dean repeats in confusion. "No, Cas. It's an expression. God, you can be such a friggin' mook."

The angel turns back to glare at the couple. Jessie in particular. "He isn't worthy of even the air she breathes."

Warily eyeing the angel, Dean asks, "What's your problem, dude? You're acting like a jealous bitch. What? Don't tell me, you wish that you had Jessie's girl."

When the angel looks at him in confusion, Dean sings a few more bars of the song. "You know, I wish that I had Jessie's girl. I wish that I had Jessie's girl. Where can I find her, a woman like that?"

"She's right there," the angel points out, not understanding Dean.

Dean rolls his eyes when the angel remains clueless, but shrugging his strange behavior off, finding it par for the course when both of his siblings are acting so strangely anyway.

Which brings to his mind that he hasn't seen Sam in quite a while.

Suddenly hearing a commotion behind him, he turns to see none other than his younger brother being manhandled out of the house by his younger sister. Tabitha has such a tight grip on his ear that Sam is nearly doubled over at the waist as she leads him by the ear, shoving him out of the house at the oldest Winchester. When she reaches Dean, she further shoves Sam out the side gate of the fence into an alleyway.

Hissing lowly, she rounds on her older brother as he follows into the alley, "Get him the bloody hell out of my house."

"What's going on?" Dean asks, even as a scantily clad brunette slinks by behind Tabitha into the alley, trying to tug her blouse on over her other disheveled clothing.

Turning her venom on the woman, Tabitha growls at her, "How could you be so bleeding daft as to sleep with another man in your husband's partner's house?! In his own bloody bed?!" She takes a threatening step towards the woman as she tacks on, "With my own bleeding brother, Cheryl!"

"I didn't know he was your brother! I'm sorry, Chase. Please don't tell my husband," the woman pleads, trying to right her hastily placed clothing.

"Bloody hell! I can't even look at you right now, you bint! Leave before I do decide to tell one of them!"

Hearing the deadly violence in her tone, Cheryl wisely flees, not looking back as she skirts the edge of the party and disappears towards the front street where most of the cars are parked.

Accent disappearing, Tabitha growls at Dean, "What the hell is _wrong_ with him? I find him in my _bed_ and all he can say is he was having a good time?!"

"Well, I was," Sam placidly answers, tugging his flannel shirt on and rubbing absently at the ear she'd had in a vice grip.

"What is wrong with him?!" Tabitha again hisses.

"Wait in the car, Sam," Dean directs their brother.

"But—"

"I said wait in the car, Sam!" Dean furiously repeats.

After Sam leaves, Dean turns to tell Tabitha, "That's part of what I needed to talk to you about. Something's not right with Sam. Ever since he got back…he's been…off."

"He was in the freaking cage with Lucifer. No one comes back from that completely normal," she reminds him, visibly attempting to calm herself.

"That seem anything like Sam to you?!" he hisses back, throwing an arm in the direction Sam left for emphasis.

Biting her lip, she admits to herself that it did seem completely abnormal for Sam. It really wouldn't have been so shocking if she'd found _Dean_ in bed with her boyfriend's partner's wife. But not _Sam_.

"I need your help figuring out what's going on," he pleads with her.

"I'm out," she insists, voice a whisper. "I'm staying out."

"He's your brother."

"Exactly," she reminds him. "Maybe that's just him now. Maybe he just needs more time to adjust and we need to accept it."

"That's not it."

She shrugs dismissively and starts to turn away, stopping only when Dean calls out, "He let me get turned."

When she turns cautiously back to face him, he tells, her, "He let a vamp turn me not even a month ago. There turned out to be a cure, but he _let_ a friggin' vamp turn me. Don't tell me that's normal."

"You can't know that he actually _let_ that happen, Dean. That can't be true."

"It sure as hell is," Dean maintains.

Glancing over her shoulder, Tabitha reminds him, "I've got a party to get back to."

"To the human you don't love," Castiel bitterly adds, reminding the siblings of his presence.

Infuriated, Tabitha shoves at his chest, telling him, "Screw you, Castiel. I'm done listening to your opinion. You don't get to have one anymore where I'm concerned. So why don't you disappear back to Heaven? It's what you're good at."

Dean steps between the two, moments before Castiel does indeed disappear. Grabbing her shoulders, he demands, "All right, you're acting weird as hell now and so is Castiel. What's going on with you guys? Is there…is there something I should know?"

"Yeah, that I'm sick of you and everyone else crashing the nice boring life I have now. One I'd like to get back to."

"The one where you aren't even _you_ anymore?" Dean challenges, ignoring what he's certain was a bald face lie from her. "The one where you're some placid game-piece hanging on that dick's arm? Don't get me wrong, maybe he's actually a nice guy, but he isn't the guy for _you_ , Tab."

"Why not?!" she shouts, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. "Why can't I have the guy that's kind and gentle and considerate? The guy that's steady. Always there for me. Why can't I have that for _once_ in my life?!"

"Because that's not you!" he shouts back. "You're a stubborn, mean little mule, and you deserve a guy that's going to be just as stubborn in return. Just to put up with your friggin' bullheaded, ornery, willful little ass. Answer me this, have you ever even argued with that guy? Even once."

"No, of course not!" she roars back not understanding his point. "We never argue."

"Exactly!" he crows triumphantly. "And you think you'll be a fraction of happy with a guy that you can't even let enough real emotion through with to argue with him. Dammit, look at us, you're back in my life a few hours and we're yelling and screaming at each other. Arguing is what you friggin' do!"

Tabitha storms around in a circle, her hand gesturing between them as she bellows, "Oh, yeah, 'cause this is such a healthy friggin' relationship, Dean."

"Damn right it is. Because I love you enough to not worry about hurting your precious little feelings when you're being a pigheaded idiot, and you care enough back to argue what you're really thinking and feeling," he tells her, grabbing her shoulders to stop her in front of him. "How the hell do you think you could ever be happy here? What? Living vicariously through that dude because he's a cop? Do you realize how stupid and dangerous this could be? You think you'll be happy being a bartender for the rest of your life? After everything you've done and accomplished? And the good little woman? That's not you. What if he finds out that you were a Fed? Hmm? Are you really that desperate to be an agent again that you'd settle for being the sick version of Dudley-Do-Right's Stepford wife, just to get a taste of it in this podunk place?"

She jerks away again, arms flying up between them to break his hold on her shoulders. "It's _my_ life, Dean."

He visibly calms himself, deciding on a different tack. "So it is, Tabby. So it is. But that doesn't change the fact that I need your help with Sammy. And with this case here in town. People are dying. Can you really just stand by while people die, Tab?"

Although she'd puffed herself up to argue with him, she deflates slightly and agrees, "Fine. Fine. I'll help you with this _one_ case. And I'll see if I can help with Sam in the meantime. But after that, it's back to my boring life." Jerking her head over her shoulder, she tells him, "Let me just go put in a little more time at this party before I make an excuse to slip away."

"Want me to give you the address of our motel?" he asks, taking whatever he can get from his sister for now. Hoping to figure out the rest later.

Shaking her head, she assures him, "I know the two of you. I know just what motel you'd choose."

When she makes her way back through the gate, she's startled to see Jessie waiting for her. His smile is easy, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes as he says, "Hey, there you are. I was just looking for you."

"Right here, luv," she assures him, slipping under his arm as they head back for the party.

As they close the gate to the alley behind them, Jessie whispers, "Love you."

"Me, too," she whispers in return.

* * *

"Where the bloody hell is Sam?" Tabitha asks as she walks into her brothers' motel room, dropping her leather coat in a heap on the floor just inside the door. She can plainly spot her older brother sitting at the table with a bottle of whiskey and a laptop, but her younger brother is conspicuously absent.

Dean downs the last of his current glass, shuddering as he tells her without turning around, "Drop the friggin' limey accent."

Clearing her throat once, she apologizes, "Sorry. Been using it for the better part of a year. Hard to let go of sometimes."

Finally looking over his shoulder, he snidely tells her, "Knock much?"

Shrugging, she points out, "Why? I knew this was your room and the door wasn't locked. You gonna keep being a piss-ant? Or you gonna tell me where Sam is and what's going on?"

Standing, Dean grabs another tumbler, and pours her and himself another generous helping of whiskey. As he crosses the room to hand her the other glass, he explains, "Dropped him off at the morgue again. I wanted him out of the room for a while."

"Fine," she nods, taking a sip. Pointing towards the laptop, she asks, "So what have you gotten figured out on the case?"

Dean starts towards the table, but hesitates to swing back and tell her, "I just gotta say, Tab, the whole accent, weird dark hair thing, and dark leather Goth-banger outfit you've got going kinda freaks me out. Nearly as much as Sam's been freaking me out."

She looks away with a sigh, then explains, "Look, I'm doing my best to be…undercover I guess. Be someone else. Because if I wanna stay anywhere for very long, I can't be Tabitha Winchester." She glances down at her leather pants and tight, black fishnet shirt she wears under a fitted dark red leather bustier. "Besides, I mostly ride my motorcycle now, so the leather is sorta necessary. I'd say it's more biker leather chic, with undertones of a gothic nature anyway. And I'm a bartender. How else should I dress?"

"Whatever," he grumbles sitting in front of the laptop again. As she sits beside him, he turns the laptop for her to see. "I think this is what we've got going on. All of our vics seem to have a sudden bout of everyone around them telling them all sorts of nasty but true things. No matter how much they normally wouldn't say or admit to those things."

Leaning forward, she reads the lines at the top of the internet page. "'Gabriel's horn of Truth?'" she repeats, her eyebrows flying up. "You gotta be kidding me, Dean. Could you really see Gabriel playing a horn that makes people suddenly tell the truth?"

"Let me think about it. Yeah," Dean fires back. "Something that goes overboard and makes everyone around them tell every nasty truthful thing until the person kills themselves. Sounds just like him."

Shaking her head, Tabitha answers, "He likes tricks and pranks. But people just telling the truth? Just feels…off. I guess I can ask…" she trails off, biting her cheek as she decides not to tell her brother about her Gabriel infested laptop. Not yet at least. Forging on, she asks, "Why are you so sure it's some Heavenly instrument? It could be anything else. What's making you settle on this with so little evidence?"

Dean leans back in his chair, holding his tumbler to his chest as he looks at her with narrowed eyes. "Because some of us have actually been working on this shit recently. And some of us know enough of what's going on out there to know that the angels have got a little problem up there. Some of their nukes have gone missing. Like Moses's staff. Ran into that on a previous case few months back."

"They've got missing 'nukes'?" she incredulously repeats. "How the hell did that happen?"

"Well, you could ask your little boyfriend that. You and Cas must have been having quite the moment from the heated little exchange I witnessed," Dean snidely points out.

Blowing up, Tabitha slams her tumbler down as she twirls up and out of her chair, "You know what, Dean? Fuck you! I'm only here to help you out. If you don't want my help, just say so, and I will head back home. To my _boyfriend_. Remember him? Jessie?"

Dean's eyes remain narrowed suspiciously for a moment, and then he closes his eyes and says, "Castiel? Hello? Possible loose nuke down here, angelic weapon. Kinda your department."

"Fuck," Tabitha groans, going back to the door and picking up her coat. "You wanna involve that ass, then I'm gonna bounce. If this is his department, then you don't need me. I'm outta here."

As she stands up from grabbing her coat, she comes face to chest with a tan trench coat.

"Hello, Tabitha. Dean," the angel quietly greets.

Tabitha sucks in a startled breath, caught off guard by his sudden proximity as her heart starts inexplicably racing.

"Are you all right?" the angel asks her, reaching out to hold her elbow and steady her.

Until that moment when his hand touches her arm, the heat of his fingers seeping through the fishnet shirt, she hadn't realized she'd quit breathing. Or that one of her hands had flown to cover her racing heart.

From behind her, Dean stalks nearer to demand, "Are you kidding me? I have been on red alert about Sam, and you come for some stupid _horn_?!"

For several beats, Castiel only stares down into her eyes as she stares dumbfounded into his, too caught by his gaze to move.

As Dean draws even with the pair, he snarls, "Or maybe it wasn't me _or_ the horn you came racing down here to see."

Hearing his pointed words, Tabitha jerks away from Castiel's touch, tugging her jacket on and pulling her hair free from the leather coat.

"Whatever boys. Have fun with your little boy scout meeting. I'm out."

As she goes to step around the angel, she hears him assure Dean, "You asked me to be here, and I came."

With a shout, Dean exclaims, "I've been asking you to be here for days, you dick! And it doesn't escape my notice that now that Tabitha is back, you're down here lickity-split!" Tabitha reaches for the doorknob, but the door is jerked from her hand as Dean reaches over her shoulder and slams it shut again.

To her, he snarls, "And don't think you're sneaking off so fast either. Something is going on and you're not leaving 'till I know what's what."

"There's nothing to know. I'm just sick of getting pulled back into this bullshit. Every time I try to have a normal life, guess what, _you_ suck me right back in. And destroy everything I've built. I'm not letting you do it this time, Dean! I'm out!" She snarls the words back at him as she turns to face him, leaning back against the closed door.

"You're not leaving," he insists.

Ducking under his arm, she reminds him, "Fine, but we agreed it was just this _one_ case. Once that's done, I'm gone."

Breaking their stare, Castiel tells them, "I didn't come about Sam. Because I have nothing to offer about Sam. Or Tabitha."

"Well, that's great, because for all we know, he's just gift wrapped for Lucifer." He throws an arm in his sister's direction, adding, "I don't even begin to know what's wrong with _her_."

Castiel grabs the bottle of whiskey beside him, walking forward to pour Dean another glass as he says, "No, he's…he's not Lucifer."

"And how do you know that?" Dean demands.

With a sigh, Castiel explains, "If Lucifer escaped the cage, we'd feel it."

Not seeming to notice that Castiel doesn't address his question about Tabitha, Dean desperately asks, "What is wrong with him?"

"I don't know, Dean," the angel laments. "I'm sorry."

"What happened to you, Cas? You used to be human, or at least like one."

"I'm at war," the angel tells Dean, turning to walk back to the window beside the door where Tabitha still hovers.

As the angel plunks the bottle back down, he leans heavily on the sideboard, almost sorrowfully explaining, "Certain…regrettable things are now required of me." He looks across at Tabitha, dropping his voice for her ears alone as he adds, "And I'm alone now."

From the middle of the room, Dean asks, "And Gabriel's Horn of Truth? That's a real thing?"

Turning back towards him, Castiel inquires hopefully, "You've seen it?"

"We think it's in town. Something's forcing people…"

The angel vanishes before he can finish, leaving Dean to vent in exasperation, "Oh, well, you're welcome!"

Stalking a few steps closer to her, Dean demands, " _What_ is going on with you? And don't tell me there isn't something going on. What happened the night you came back? You said you saw Castiel that night. But he certainly neglected to mention any of that, and now the two of you are acting all squirrely. What happened that night? What's going on with the two of you?"

"Nothing!" she indignantly insists. "Nothing happened that night, and nothing is going on now. Jesus, Dean. Whatever is going on with Sam is making you paranoid. What the hell do you _think_ is going on with me and duchebag angel?"

"I don't know!" he shouts, draining his whiskey. "But something is."

The angel suddenly reappears behind Dean, telling them, "It isn't the Horn of Truth."

"What are you talking about? You were gone for like two seconds. Where did you look?" Dean asks.

"Everywhere," Castiel matter-of-factly explains.

"Right," Dean replies. Annoyed, he tells the angel, "Well, nice seeing you anyway."

As the oldest Winchester turns his back, the angel calls out, "Dean."

Not turning around, Dean snaps, "What?"

"About your brother, I…I don't know what's wrong with him, but I do want to help. I'll make inquiries."

No longer remaining silent, Tabitha steps forward to demand, "'You'll make inquiries'? So you're actually agreeing that something is wrong with him." Castiel frowns in her direction, but otherwise doesn't respond, so she presses, "You must be, otherwise you wouldn't be looking into it. What do you know, Castiel?"

When he continues to frown at her, she steps to his elbow, growling, "I know you too well for you to float that by me. You know _something_. What do you know?!"

Low and harshly, he whispers, "That humans are cruel and capricious with their…love."

He disappears before she can respond. But that doesn't stop her from yelling in his absence, "Screw you, Castiel!"

"What the hell was that?" Dean questions again. "And don't tell me that I'm being paranoid, 'cause that _just_ happened."

Visibly pulling herself together, Tabitha tells him, "Sorry, I guess I'm just out of practice dealing with douchey angels." She turns and points to his laptop. "Well, strike one there, let's get back to the drawing board."

"You know what? Screw this," he tells Tabitha. "I'm getting a _real_ drink."

He grabs his leather coat and starts for the door just as Tabitha sits at the table again, prompting her to spring up in surprise. "What?!" she demands. "You were the one laying the guilt on extra thick that people were dying and that you needed my help. Now _you're_ gonna bail?"

Popping up his collar, he tells her, "You know what I _really_ need from you? The truth. Just for _once_ , I need the truth from you. But seeing as I'm not gonna get it, I'm gonna need a drink instead."

He leaves as she sputters indignantly in his wake.

* * *

Tabitha throws a perturbed look over her shoulder when her brothers walk back into their motel room together hours later.

"So nice of you two to join me," she notes, turning back to the laptop in front of her.

Seemingly oblivious to her mood, Sam tells her, "No problem. We actually may have found a lead at the first victim's house. Our patient zero goes back farther than we thought. Her death was ruled car accident, but we're pretty sure it was a suicide, too. Plus, we think she might have been doing a little spell work."

With a frown at his attitude, but nevertheless still interested, Tabitha leans forward as Sam shows her the skull of a cat.

"Super," she groans to herself. "Don't tell me, another witch. Why'd I have to move to a town with a freakin' witch problem?"

"We're not sure it's a witch," Sam points out. "But it might point us in the right direction."

Dean had been hanging back near the door, but finally steps a bit closer, quietly asking, "You find anything useful, Tab?"

She gestures at the screen. "Not really. Lots of cultures and religions have myths of truth and justice and that sort of thing, but I haven't found anything really conclusive yet."

She glances down at her watch. "And I really need to get going, I had another guy open the bar for me, but I should get there before the work crowd starts coming in. They'll filter off to another bar if Travis is the only thing they have to look at, and let's face it, guys would rather look at a hot woman after a long day at work than another dude."

As she stands, she pulls her leather coat off the back of her chair tugging it on as she continues, "You know, I think working in a bar has actually been one of my favorite jobs so far. I can drink and smoke during my shift as much as I want, so long as I keep the drinks flowing and the money coming in. And let's face it, as long as men get to sit on a stool and stare at this," she gestures down to her body, "they'll keep buying. Plus, even though the feminist in me hates to admit it, I really do enjoy having men stare at me and admire me like that. I think it has something to do with never getting validation from our father growing up. Someone would probably say it's some kind of daddy issue, but who cares; I get crazy good tips the skankier I dress."

With her coat only partway pulled on, she stops to shakily admit, "That's a strange revelation to have. Especially out loud. Wow. I uh, I should get to work now."

Dean stops in front of her. "You're not going anywhere until I get the truth, Tabitha."

"What? Is this Truth or Dare? 'Cause I never liked the Truth part. I always took the Dare. I guess that's how I ended up letting Bobby Harris go all the way to 3rd base that time in the sixth grade."

Her hands fly to cover her mouth as Dean lets a resigned sort of shudder.

Seeing his face, she puts two and two together. From under her hands, she asks in a horrified voice, "Oh my god, Dean. What did you do?"

"I'm cursed," he admits, still shaking his head as if to remove the images.

"Again?" she asks in disbelief. "Jesus. I swear, you two dying or getting cursed is like a weekly occurrence. If it weren't for the fact that you've miraculously pulled off some pretty amazing shit, I'd almost think you guys were the worst hunters ever."

"Thanks," he intones, rolling his eyes.

"Shit," she curses, then pushes past him for the door, "I've got to get out of here now."

He grabs her elbow. "No. Not until I've got the answers I'm looking for. And I know you'll give them. Sam already did."

With a nervous look at her relaxed younger brother, Tabitha shifts from foot to foot. "No thanks," she declines. "I think I'll pass. Let me know how getting this curse lifted goes."

Still holding her arm, Dean stares at her and asks, "Where have you been this past year?"

She shrugs. "I drifted around a bit. I did stop by to see you at Lisa's, but you looked so happy and I knew that it would just piss me off to be around happy people then, so I left. Eventually stopped here. Not much else to tell. You know the rest."

Dean's eyes narrow on her as he gauges her face for the truthfulness of her response.

In low, serious tones, he finally asks her, "What's going on with you and the angel?"

She sucks in a sharp breath before saying in a whisper, "Nothing. Nothing is going on… Now."

"'Now'?!" he repeats in an angry retort. He stomps with quick heavy thuds away and then back to stand in front of her, crowding her as he demands, "Just what exactly was going on _before_?!"

Gritting her teeth against the need to answer, and wrapping her arms around her midsection as she breaks into a sweat, she unsteadily begs, "Dean…please."

"Answer the question," he pitilessly intones.

"Yes," she mumbles against her will, bending over at the waist as the words are drawn out of her despite her efforts to hold onto it all. "Before that day when Sam jumped into the pit, we'd been sleeping together on and off for the better part of a year and a half."

* * *

 

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told you that the answers to everything would be coming in a big way. :) Bet you just weren't seeing all that coming!
> 
> I know everyone has been itching for the boys to find out for a long long time. But I always envisioned this moment in this episode, from the very beginning. So I just couldn't rush things. And I know, we've all thought, "How can they not see it?!" all along, but sometimes, we don't see what we're don't really want to see or aren't ready to know. But Dean was really needing to hear the truth here. And oh boy, did he get it. With loads more to come!
> 
> Fasten your seat belts kiddos, next chapter is going to be a bumpy ride!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and as always, don't forget to feed the meter! Reviews are what we live by!
> 
> And be sure to check out some cool fanart that the fabulous onethousandmoths made. It's at the bottom of the chapter. I'm loving it. Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3: Who Said the Truth Will Set You Free?

**Chapter 3: Who Said the Truth Will Set You Free?**

 

In low, serious tones, Dean asks her, "What's going on with you and the angel?"

She sucks in a sharp breath before saying in a whisper, "Nothing. Nothing is going on… Now."

"'Now'?!" he repeats in an angry retort. He stomps with quick heavy thuds away and then back to stand in front of her as he tugs at his hair, crowding her as he demands, "Just what exactly was going on _before_?!"

Gritting her teeth against the need to answer his curse has brought, and wrapping her arms around her midsection as she breaks into a sweat, she unsteadily begs, "Dean…please."

"Answer the question," he pitilessly intones.

"Yes," she mumbles against her will, bending over at the waist as the words are drawn out of her despite her efforts to hold onto it all. "Before that day when Sam jumped into the pit, we'd been sleeping together on and off for the better part of a year and a half."

As she'd always predicted, Dean's reaction is through the roof with his anger. " _What_!?" he bellows, furious and shocked all wrapped together in swirling emotions as he throws his arms wide. "Sleeping together as in friggin' _doing it_?!"

Biting her tongue until she draws blood, she's nevertheless compelled to at least nod her head in agreement.

"Castiel who art in Heaven, you better get your feathery ass down here now, 'cause Tabitha's about to get her ass killed!" Dean screams at the ceiling.

Standing upright, Tabitha's eyes go wide as she fearfully shouts, "Dean, no!"

As she predicted in her mind, as soon as Castiel appears, Dean flies at him, laying into the angel with his fists and catching him off guard. While the pair tumbles to the ground, Tabitha worriedly circles them, grabbing at Dean's arms and trying to pull him off the angel. Her brother manages several more vicious punches to the angel's face before she hauls him off.

In return, the angel merely shakes his head once, the blood formerly dripping from his face disappearing as he stands frowning at the now struggling siblings.

"What danger is Tabitha in?" the angel asks, seeming confused by the events occurring.

Finally, Dean stops trying to go after the angel, jerking away from his sister as he hisses more directly at her, " _I'm_ the danger. 'Cause I'm gonna kill her. Then I'm coming after _your_ ass!" He directs the last part at the angel, turning his fury back on him.

"I don't understand," Castiel responds, seeming only curious by the events, and not at all concerned that Dean had flown at him fists first only moments before.

Before she can hiss at the angel to disappear or at least to shut up, Dean furiously bellows at him, "You slept with my _sister_!"

Castiel's head tips to the side as he stares perplexed back at Dean. "When I was nearly human, I did once fall asleep with your sister. I was not aware you would be angered by it. There wasn't enough room in the front seat with you and Sam. So it seemed best to rest in the back seat with her."

" _What_?!" Dean shrieks.

"Shut up, Castiel," she lowly hisses at the angel. She continues explaining to the infuriatingly oblivious servant of Heaven, "He means sex. He knows now that we had _sex_!"

"Oh," he softly mutters in dawning understanding. "I see."

"You see?!" Dean hysterically continues, arms flapping at his sides in what would have been a comical fashion if not for the murder in his eyes. "Sounds like you've been seeing _too much_ of our sister!"

Looking annoyed, Sam rubs his temple and scolds Dean, "Come on buddy, at least lower the pitch of your screaming. You're gonna shatter glass soon."

Dean rounds on him incredulously. "We find out this angel has been banging our sister all along and _that's_ what you have to say?!"

Eyes darting around, Sam uneasily adds, "Um…it's her life? So…it's her choice?"

"Not when she chooses so piss poorly!"

Dean whips around to confront Tabitha again. "What the hell were you thinking?!"

"That he rocked my world harder than any human ever has."

As soon as the words fly out of her mouth, she slaps her hands over her lips. "Stop asking me questions," she mumbles, face hot from embarrassment.

Shuddering in response to the unfiltered answer from her, Dean turns away and zeros in on the angel instead. "We were like brothers, man. You don't sleep with you brother's sister!"

When Castiel frowns in confusion at the strange statement, Dean huffs in annoyance, "You know what I mean!"

"I don't see Tabitha as a sister. I view her in the way I imagine you do when you—"

Dean cuts him off, hands waving from side to side dramatically in a choppy motion. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Dean darkly warns. "You _better not_ be seeing my sister that way!"

"She's a beautiful woman. Unclothed she's—"

As Dean rushes at the angel again and Sam intercedes to stop him, Tabitha slides in front of her brother's target, shoving his chest while snapping, "Shut the hell up, Castiel. And get out of here. Now! Before he decides to kill _you_!"

Castiel spares a gauging look at Dean struggling to break free, disappearing just before he does.

After barreling through the space where the angel had previously stood, he rounds once more on Tabitha. "Is this what future me was talking about? When I told me to keep you away from the angel, is this what I was telling me about?"

Tabitha rubs her temple at the confounding question. "Way too many first-person pronouns there," she mutters to herself, hoping to avoid the question she'd rather not answer.

"Is it?!" he repeats, not amused by her mutterings.

"Yeah, that's probably what that asshole was talking about," she's forced to admit.

"How long had I known in the future?"

Still compelled to answer against her will, Tabitha rubs at her temple and tells him, "He found out when he caught me coming out of Castiel's cabin in the future."

"You slept with future, hippie Cas?!"

"Stop shrieking like a girl! It's giving me a headache. And yes. I did. I also slept with the Castiel from another dimension. Took his virginity, too." She bites her wagging tongue, and then begs, " _Please_ stop asking me questions, Dean."

But her brother remains pitiless as he continues. "What the hell's the deal with you and that dick, Jessie, if you're banging the angel? You doing them both?"

"What?! No!" she truthfully snaps, stalking closer to tell him, "Castiel and I are through. Have been for more than a year. I'm with Jessie now. Just Jessie. Even though Castiel throwing me on the counter in my house and kissing me left me _way_ more hot and bothered than Jessie _ever_ has."

"Stop saying shit like that!" Dean shouts, covering his ears and shuddering.

"Then stop getting cursed and shit all the time!" she shouts back. "Jesus, no wonder you're so paranoid of Sam suddenly. He's proving to be the better hunter and your delicate little girl ego can't handle it. Just man up and realize that while you think you were this great replacement for Dad that you're no better than he was. You never knew what was going on with Sam. _Hello_! How'd you not see the Ruby or demon blood thing coming a mile away? And Christ, you didn't realize Castiel and I were screwing that whole time? We were practically doing it under your freakin' nose, Dean! There were times we were sneaking off almost every night! And you try to think of yourself as being so much better of a father figure to Sam and I? You never even realized I was banging your best angel buddy!"

Her heart is racing and her throat raw after she finishes her screaming tirade at her brother. For a moment, she feels righteous in her rant against him. Then, the reality of it all sets in, and she slaps her hands over her mouth again.

From under her hands, she whispers in mortification, "I'm so sorry, Dean. I didn't really mean it like that. It's the curse."

Looking chagrined, and not just a little bit hurt by her words, he mumbles, "Oh yeah? Didn't mean any of that, huh?"

Wincing, she's forced to truthfully reply, "Most of it."

Before Dean can question her any more she turns back towards the door, telling him in a rush, "I have to get out of here, Dean. Before this gets worse. I can't help you right now, so just let me know when this curse is gone."

Her hand is on the door to pull it open, but once more Dean reaches over her shoulder, slamming it shut again and holding it in place.

She wearily leans her forehead against the door as he asks to her back, "Do you love him?"

At the question, she tenses, biting her tongue until it bleeds as she gives all her fortitude to keep from answering. When he doesn't repeat the question, forcing her compliance, she softly whispers against the scuffed wood door under her forehead, "Please, Dean. I'm begging you. Don't ask me that question."

Instead of moving, his hand remains pinning the door closed. Leaning closer, he whispers to her back, "And what about Jessie? Do you love _him_? 'Cause straight up, that idiot was seconds away from trying to ask me for my permission to marry you or some shit."

Head dropping until her chin hits her chest, she whispers, "I found the ring when we were unpacking two weeks ago."

"You know? So, what?" he demands. "You going to say yes to him and become his dutiful little woman?"

Shuddering, she truthfully answers, "Until this moment, I'd been lying to myself and trying to convince myself that it was a ring leftover from a previous girlfriend or something."

"And now?"

"I don't know," she admits. Then in a scant whisper, says, "But I can't marry him."

At her confession, he finally relents and releases the door.

As his hand falls silently away from her barrier to escape, she yanks at the scratched wooden door, opening it just far enough to silently slip through. Away from the harsh truths that not even _she_ is ready to hear.

* * *

After the truth-telling ordeal with her older brother, Tabitha feels exhausted when she shuts her own front door securely behind her.

She would have normally parked her Ducati in the side alley or in their back driveway, but she hadn't felt like parking in the back and seeing what a mess their backyard is probably still in. Instead, she'd chosen to park her motorcycle in the less secure front driveway and enter the front door.

They'd chosen an outdoor barbecue to limit the mess their house would be left in—especially given that there were still boxes everywhere from them both unpacking their respective things—but as she casts a quick glance around from the entryway, she can see that empty and half-full beer bottles line most of the flat surfaces in view. She sighs in exasperation when she realizes that Jessie had likely allowed the party to continue into the night and invited their guests inside to mingle until they decided to leave. Doubling or more the cleanup that Tabitha now has ahead of her.

"Shit," she mutters to herself, leaning back against the inside of their front door. What she'd like more than anything else, is to crawl into bed and forget the whole mess of a day ever even happened.

But thoughts of climbing into her bed bring to mind that she'd caught her brother going at it with her quasi-friend hours earlier, throwing cold water on that idea.

"Frickin' burning those sheets," she continues mumbling to herself, eyes still shut as she savors the silence of the house.

"What sheets are you burning?"

"Christ!" Tabitha exclaims, jumping and slapping a hand across her chest when she hears Jessie's voice coming from the living room. As she steps around the corner of the entryway, she spots her boyfriend slumped deeply into one of the easy chairs with his back to her.

Clearing her throat, Tabitha resumes her accent as she says, "Blimey. Like to give me apoplexy. Sitting 'round in the dark like this." As she steps further into their living room, taking in the scattered mess of trash from the party, she asks him, "There a reason for sulking in the dark, luv? Thought you were hoping to get a bit of paperwork done at the office tonight after the party. I didn't expect you to still be home."

She drops her bag to the floor near the coffee table when she finds nowhere else to set it, then picks up the trash bag someone had started filling and then abandoned on the floor in the middle of the living room. After picking up a few pieces of garbage, she realizes Jessie hasn't answered her. Or even acknowledged her presence.

"Jessie?" she questions, walking back to where he sits. When he looks up at her and she sees dark unknown emotions shinning back, she turns to clear some space off the coffee table so she can sit down in front of Jessie.

As she reaches the corner of the table where a lone beer bottle sits in a nearly cleared section of the table, Jessie snaps at her, "Leave that bottle there!"

Snatching her hand away, she looks back and forth between the two, trying to place what's going on. After realizing the bottle is a dark ale—one of her boyfriend's least favorite kinds of beer—she's forced to say, "Didn't think you were drinking that, dear. Dark ale's not normally to your fancy."

"I wasn't drinking that," he answers, his voice now sedate. "You were drinking that at the party. You handed it to me when you left earlier."

Throwing a glance at it, she teases, "I know this is our first party together, luv, but no need to commemorate it with rubbish like an old beer bottle. Leastwise, let me empty and clean it out so it doesn't stink of stale beer."

When he doesn't respond to her teasing, or indeed even look up from staring at the beer bottle, she worriedly prompts again, "Jessie?"

His eyes finally jerk away from the beer bottle, looking up at her with an accusatory edge as he tells her, "I've been sitting here staring at this bottle for hours. Wondering just what would happen if I took it down to the station to run it for prints."

She just manages not to gasp or give any sort of physical reaction, however she's certain her eyes widened guiltily enough to give her away to a trained eye. Her only hope is that the overpowering smell of stale beer is coming from more than just the bottles around the room, and that Jessie didn't notice any sort of telling reaction from her.

Amazed at the acting skills she's perfected in a long life of pretending and outright lying, she sweetly asks, "Seems like a silly waste of resources, luv. I'm sure your captain wouldn't be pleased with you and your partner Johnny playing 'round like that."

"You can drop the accent," he responds, and this time she's certain his eyes zero in on her minute reactions of surprise.

"Darling, what—"

"I overheard you talking with your brother…Tab," he interrupts, leaving her mouth hanging open in shock.

When she simply stares back, he continues with, "What's that short for? Tabitha, I'm guessing. Tabitha something. But you're not British. Heard your real accent. Though, you should be commended on your acting skills. I never even suspected the truth."

After another silent moment, he snaps, "You even going to say anything?!"

Dropping the accent, she asks, "What would you like me to say?" She sees no point in continuing the farce. And no point in insulting his intelligence by pretending she doesn't know what he's talking about.

He explodes up out of the chair, storming past her but turning back before he leaves the living room.

As she slowly spins on the coffee table to face him, he thunders at her, "Why?! Why did you lie to me this whole time? Who are you? Who are you really?"

Leaning forward, she braces her elbows on her knees, rubbing her now throbbing temple as she hunches over her spread knees. "You're asking a lot of questions that I can't give you any answers for. Not really. Not without putting your life in danger."

He scoffs, " _My_ life? So, what? Don't tell me…you're in witness relocation or something. In witness protection for something you saw? Like I believe that. Jesus. You must have thought I was such an idiot this whole time. I heard your brother; he said you were a Fed. And you let me go on and on about how a police investigation is conducted. Like you didn't already know."

He'd been pacing as he ranted, but he stops when a thought comes to him. "Or are you actually running from the cops? Is that why you're pretending to be a foreign national? What the hell did you do?!"

"It's complicated."

"Bullshit!" he screams, stomping closer to tower over her. "What did you do? Or so help me, I'll take that bottle," he jabs a finger in the direction of the beer bottle now behind her, "and I'll run if for prints myself. I want to know what the hell you've been hiding from me and lying about."

"Okay," she sighs in resignation, still staring at the carpet between her feet. "Okay. If that's what you want to do…I won't try to stop you. I'll only ask that you give me 24 hours to get everything I need together so I can leave town. Just give me that."

"What?!" he bellows, completely thrown off guard by her response. "You're not even going to tell me what you did?"

She chuckles ruefully before looking briefly up and then away. "You wouldn't believe me if I did. But I will warn that running those prints would be dangerous. Looking into my _past_ is dangerous—"

"So you _are_ wanted by the police," he says, cutting her off. He paces around the room again, rubbing his palms against his short-cropped hair. "Jesus. What the hell did you do?"

"Like I said, it's complicated. But it's not the police you'd truly be in danger with."

Once more, he cuts her off before she can continue. "What, like with the mob or something? Tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help you."

"Jessie, what part of 'I can't explain this to you' don't you understand? It's not the mob. It's way worse than something as trivial as the mob. It's just…dangerous. Nothing you can help with. _Please_ …leave it at that. Just…forget about me. I'll be gone in 24 hours, and you can just…forget about me," she pleads, intertwining her fingers between her knees.

Jessie suddenly stops a foot away from her, kneeling on the carpet just in front of her and taking her hands between his.

"I've been with you for over a year. Some of that… _most_ of that couldn't have been a lie. You became everything to me. I would have given my _life_ for you. So please…just tell me what's going on."

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she replies with a watery half-smile.

"Try me," he challenges. "I…I loved you as Chase. Those feelings…they somehow haven't gone away, even though you lied to me. So please, tell me what's going on. Maybe I can help you. Just…why would it be so dangerous if I looked into your past? What would I find?"

Against her better judgment, Tabitha briefly grinds her teeth before telling him, "If you run my prints, you'll find my name…Tabitha Winchester. Linked to a death certificate under the same name. As well as allegations that I shot and killed several fellow federal agents."

Jessie rocks back on his heels away from her, his hands not quite letting go of hers, but his grip loosens.

"Did you?" he whispers, the look in his eyes saying he's afraid of the answer.

"Yes."

His hands jerk away from hers as he springs to his feet. A look of horror replaces the look of anticipation he'd worn as he backs away.

Quickly, Tabitha springs to her feet, following his retreating steps as she rushes to assure him, "Look, it's complicated. I told you that."

"No it's not," he hisses in fury. "Either you killed other cops or you didn't."

"I wasn't trying to kill them!" she shouts, rushing after him when he turns to stride towards their front door. "I was exorcising the demons in them and them dying was an unintended side effect."

Jessie halts in his tracks, turning to look at her in disbelief as he repeats, "'Exorcising demons?' You've got to be kidding me. What, now I'm supposed to believe that you're crazy or something? Maybe hear and see things that no one else can? Why the hell won't you just tell me what's really going on? We've been together for over a year now. You think I wouldn't have recognized crazy in you?!"

"Exactly!" she agrees, stepping closer and reaching for his hands. When he jerks his away, she steps back but doesn't relent. "Exactly. You would know if I was crazy. This isn't crazy psychobabble. And I'm not making up a story to cover for something else. Listen to me very carefully when I tell you this. Demons…are real. As are a lot of other monsters out there that you think only exist in nightmares and horror movies. Along with a whole lot more that you've never even imagined."

He continues to stare in disbelief before he tells her, "So, you're actually expecting me to believe that demons…and monsters are real. Going back to the story that, what? Only you can see them. And you're some real life Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something here?"

She rolls her eyes at the comparison. "Please. Buffy was a dumb little high schoolgirl who thought her freakin' love triangle with vampires and her little high school drama were the center of the universe. I'm talking about _real_ monsters. And _real_ nightmares. And no, it's not just me. It's not even just me and my brothers. There's lots of us that know what's really out there. Unfortunately, we're still outnumbered by the monsters."

Shaking his head, he insists, "You're a friggin' bartender. How's _that_ work into your little horror story theory here?"

"Call it…early retirement, I guess," she shrugs. "Kinda figured after helping save the universe from the last apocalypse, it was the least I was due to be able to get out and live a normal life."

Jessie stalks away from her, back towards the living room, picking up one of the many beer bottles sitting around and drinking from it. But Tabitha sighs in relief that it's also stepping away from the door. Hopefully a step in the right direction.

"This is crazy," Jessie insists to himself.

"Have I ever seemed crazy to you?" she asks.

"No," he agrees, but then throws her a scathing look. "Then again, I'd have sworn on my left nut that you were British, too."

"Fair enough. But I'm not lying about this, Jess. There are really demons and monsters out there."

"Prove it," he challenges.

"'Prove it?'" she repeats. "And just how would you like me to do that? What, summon a demon? Don't really think you're ready for that."

"I don't know. But if you expect me to actually believe… _any_ of this, then…prove it," he insists.

After a head-scratching moment, she finally says, "Fine. Come upstairs with me."

Not turning to see if he follows, she turns and marches up the stairs. There's a moment of uncertainty when she reaches the top of the stairs and realizes she's alone, but after a moment, he turns around the corner and trudges up the stairs after her, warily following her into their bedroom.

She throws a scowl at their still disarrayed bed, but saves that for another time as she shoves at the frame of the bed, pushing it by several feet until the hardwood floor underneath is exposed.

"I don't see anything," he impatiently tells her.

"That's good, otherwise _you'd_ be seeing things," she fires back in annoyance, opening their closet and pulling out a flashlight from one of her bags.

"Don't," she warns when he reaches for the light switch just inside the doorway.

As he crosses his arms over his chest, she flicks the switch on her handheld flashlight, throwing the room into a wash of soft blue light.

As the markings on the floor jump to life in the black-light, Jessie leans closer to peer at them.

"And this proves what?" he tentatively asks.

Gesturing with the light, she explains, "That's a Devil's Trap, meant to catch and hold anyone possessed by a demon. And those other sigils are various wards and traps. Meant to ward off angels, vampires, werewolves, and all sorts of other baddies."

"And they're drawn under our _bed_?" he asks, one brow rising.

Feeling herself flush slightly, she admits, "I don't have the best track record when it comes to…men. So…it's sort of a…precaution."

He scoffs as he re-crosses his arms defiantly over his chest. "Bunch of weird symbols on our floor doesn't prove anything, Chase…err, Tabitha. Just lends credence to the idea that maybe you are…"

"Don't even say it," she cuts him off in a huff. "I'm not crazy. This—" she thrusts her free hand towards the traps and symbols, "—is real. It's for protection. That tattoo you've asked about on my ass? That's for protection, too. Keeps a demon from jumping into my skin—"

He cuts her off then, "Yeah, you saying all this doesn't make it real."

She desperately looks around for some way to make him see that it's all real. Then, as an idea strikes her, she throws caution to the wind as she lowers her mental guards, closes her eyes, and calls out, "Castiel…who art in Heaven…or wherever the hell you are…I need your…assistance. And don't give me any bullcrap about being busy or whatever. You owe me…and I never ask you for anything."

Even if she hadn't been able to feel the moment the angel appears behind her, Jessie's sudden inhale of breath and muttered curses of surprise would have given the angel away.

Turning, she sedately greets, "Hey, Castiel. Uh…thanks. I guess."

He nods a bit stiffly at her, glancing at the human behind her before asking, "You required my…assistance?"

"Yeah, but you've kinda already given it," she answers, turning back to see her boyfriend on what looks to be the verge of a panic attack as he breathes rapid and shallow breaths.

Setting the flashlight down on the nightstand, she turns to grip Jessie's elbow as she whispers, "Breathe. Just breathe, Jess."

"He…how…not…whoosh," Jessie babbles waving his hands around and nervously wringing them.

"Deep breaths," she reminds him.

Taking a few deep breaths, he questions in a stammering voice, "How did he-how did he…how did he?"

She looks over her shoulder to see the angel in question picking up her black-light flashlight and squinting at the traps and sigils on the floor.

Shrugging, she returns her attention to Jessie with the simple answer of, "Angel."

" _That's_ an angel?" he demands in shock.

Castiel looks up from his perusal of the floor, gesturing down at himself as he explains, "This is just a vessel." He turns his attention to Tabitha, telling her, "Your sigils are close. But not quite right. Not if it was your intention to keep _me_ out."

Rolling her eyes at the slight attitude in his voice, she raises her arm to remind him, "The charms keep _any_ angel from finding me unless I want to be found. You know, like all those angels in Heaven that want my ass on a platter after the whole…Azrael and Apocalypse thing." She gestures to the floor. "Those were just…extra insurance. And besides, it's hard to find accurate lore on angels. I know for a fact that most of it out there is bullshit."

Setting the flashlight down, Castiel asks her, "Why did you call me here?"

"Because I needed a little help with a demonstration, and you've now provided it. So…thanks."

Eyes flicking briefly over her shoulder, Castiel asks, "It has nothing to do with your brothers now knowing that we are sleeping together?"

Jessie had been mostly silent in his dumbfounded shock, but now springs to life, stalking until he stands beside her as he demands, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. 'Sleeping together?' You're _sleeping_ with an _angel_?! That's…that's… _how_?!"

"No," she hisses, eyes narrowing on the angel and momentarily ignoring Jessie.

Eyebrows scrunching together, he asks, "That is not the use of the vernacular? I thought you explained that it meant sex."

Covering her face, she mutters, "Yes, it means sex. But _NO_! We are _not_ still sleeping together. Past tense, Castiel. Slept. We _slept_ together. Not anymore."

"Then why did you call me here?" he insists.

"Not for _that_!"

Wanting to wipe that infuriating look of knowing off his lips, she swings her open palm at his face to slap that look away. But before it can connect, the angel deftly catches her wrist, holding her hand in place only inches from his face as he whispers to her, "I _will_ be back for you." Then he kisses her open palm.

The angel disappears as she screams wordlessly in frustration, not wanting to examine what his words or that gesture actually meant.

When she turns towards him, she finds Jessie still staring at her in shock.

"You slept with an angel?" he whispers. Then seems to reexamine his words and shifts the focus of his incredulity. "Angels are _real_?!"

As he slumps down to collapse on the foot of their bed, she cringes and tells him, "By the way—bad timing, I know—but we really need to burn those sheets. Just…trust me on this."

* * *

Peeling her eyes open, Tabitha looks around their chaotic bedroom from where she sits on the floor, looking back to her rumpled and disheveled boyfriend.

"You haven't said anything in a while," she points out, voice rough and hoarse from hours of talking.

"I don't know what else to say," he softly admits.

"It's a lot to take in," she helpfully points out, averting her eyes and nervously toying with the loose, dark brunette locks spilling over her shoulder. Instead of focusing on her boyfriend and pressuring him to say something, she finger-combs her hair, weaving it into a loose braid at her shoulder.

"I don't know what else to ask," he finally tells her, drawing her eyes covertly back to study him, noting that some of the tension seems to have bled out of his body from the way he sits on the floor across the room from her, one arm loosely wrapped around the knee he has drawn to his chest. Whether the tension has bled away from the long night and day of his rapid-fire questions and her answers, or from pure exhaustion, she's unsure.

Neither had left the room in the past twenty odd hours except for short bathroom breaks. Work for both had been silently agreed upon to be foregone. As were meals and all other seemingly unnecessary tasks save splashing water on their faces in their bathroom to revive themselves.

"I've tried to tell you everything I can," she tells him, drawing her own knees upward and folding her arms atop them. "I've tried to explain my family's past and everything that's happened as best I can."

After his continued stare into the rug between them, he quietly acknowledges, "Somehow, there's some part of me that just wants to wake up and have this all have been a bad dream. To just wake up and go back to when you were just Chase and you weren't telling me that there were all kinds of monsters lurking around every corner. Before strange men—excuse me, angels—were showing up in my bedroom telling me they'd been sleeping with my girlfriend." He finally looks up to meet her eyes, his own bloodshot from lack of sleep in the hours that had proceeded. "Back to when my biggest concern was hiding my stinky gym socks and old porn magazines from the amazing woman I had just moved in with and whether or not she'd actually marry me."

She can't help the slight gasp at his admission, nor looking away guiltily at his words.

"Yeah," he agrees to her wordless reply. "That seems like a hell of a long time ago now."

"I'm sorry," she mutters, tensely picking at the black nail polish on her fingernails.

"Is there any way we can go back to that?" he suddenly asks, lowering his knee from his chest and leaning a little eagerly towards her with his suggestion. "Can't we just go back to the way it was? Pretend none of the past two days has happened and go back to you being Chase and us being happy?"

The plea catches her off guard, bringing a frown to her face as she considers his entreaty.

"Go back to there being nothing supernatural in our lives and us just being Jessie and Chase?" she softly mulls.

"Why not?" he anxiously asks, coming a little closer and closing the distance between them on his knees.

Looking not at him but out the window at the soft glow of streetlights filling the night, she softly questions to herself, "Why not?"

She'd spent almost a year and a half as Chase in this little town. Over a year of that with the man only a few feet away from her, pleading on his knees. In all that time, there'd been nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing unnatural. Nothing supernatural. But really…nothing extraordinary either.

But for more than a year, there hadn't been any blood on her hands. Innocent or otherwise.

Her eyes fall on a framed picture by their bedside of her and Jessie from some months back. He's seated on a barstool and she's bent over him from behind, her arms wrapped around to hug his back to her chest. His own hands are reaching up to lovingly caress her forearms, his mouth wide in a happy, toothy smile. Her own face is stretched into a picture-perfect smile as she rests her chin on his shoulder. Poised perfectly to show the camera a Hallmark happy-couple-moment. One of so many she's been able to share with Jessie. Moments she never thought she'd have growing up in a hunter's chaotic lifestyle.

She's never smiled so much, she thinks to herself. In all that time with Jessie, she'd smiled more than she thinks she ever has in her life. They have so many pictures of them in the year they dated. Jessie with his head thrown back in laughter. Or turned towards her in adoration. Or snickering at something she's said or done.

And in every one, she wears the same picture-perfect Kodak-smile. The same thousand-watt brilliance. So perfectly timed for the camera.

So perfectly convincing…that she wonders when even _she_ began to believe the lie she sold for those photos. The happiness she so winningly sold to everyone. She'd told herself that it was her Field of Dreams. And if she built that smile carefully enough, happiness would eventually come.

Had it ever?

Would it ever?

"I—"

Whatever her answer to him would have been is cut off by the soft ringing and vibration of her cellphone in her hip pocket. Seeing the strange number on the screen and realizing there were very few people in her life anymore who would be calling her at two in the morning, she reluctantly answers.

"Yeah?"

" _Get your ass back here…now_ ," Dean roughly orders.

Sighing, she admits to her older brother, "Look, right now really isn't a good time. I'm…I'm kinda in the middle of something with Jessie." And she doesn't have the energy to face another round of spilling her proverbial guts to her judgmental older brother. Especially when he… _might_ be right about a few things.

" _Save it_ ," he barks into her ear, then tells her, " _It's Sammy_."

Hearing the utter graveness in his voice, she sits up straighter, asking only, "Where?"

* * *

Tabitha gasps when she lets herself into her brothers' motel room and sees her bleeding younger brother unconscious and tied to a wooden chair in the middle of the room.

Forgetting anything else, she sprints for him, one hand deftly pulling a knife from her jacket to cut him free.

But before she can reach him, arms wrap around her midsection from behind, lifting her from the ground and swinging her away from her goal, even as the knife is neatly plucked from her hand.

As she swings on her attacker, she hauls up short when she sees Dean pocketing her blade and placing himself between her and Sam.

"What the hell?" she demands, trying to step around her older brother to help her younger one.

"No, leave him alone," he warns her, stepping with her when she tries again to sidestep him.

"What the hell happened? Who did that to him?" she unrelentingly demands, stomping her foot in frustration when Dean mimics her sidesteps back and forth, continuing to block her path.

"I did," he unapologetically informs her.

Shoving his chest, she hisses, "What?! Have you gone crazy? Why the hell would you do that? Christ! Let me through to check on him."

Folding his arms over his chest, he maintains, "No. Not happening." Then jerks a thumb over his shoulder, "And _that_ ain't really Sam."

"Oh?!" she hysterically cries. "Who is that? Big Bird? What is _wrong_ with you? Of course it's Sam!"

Grabbing her shoulders and shaking her slightly, he insists, "No. It's not. And even _he_ admitted it to me. Or at least that something was wrong with him. Not that freakin' Monsterella didn't give it away to begin with."

"What?" she shrieks, shaking her head back and forth.

In broad strokes, Dean proceeds to tell her that they found the answer to their latest monster case. The Goddess Veritas herself. Goddess of Truth. And how the Goddess had been unable to compel the truth from Sam because he wasn't human.

In disbelief, Tabitha wraps her arms around herself and insists, "So what? You believe everything frickin' monsters tell you now?"

"Well, that monster sure as hell made you and your dirty dirty little secrets come to light, now didn't she? And sure as hell made me confess back there that I'd been seriously thinking about putting Sam out of his misery from how much he was creeping me out. But him? Nothing. Couldn't force the truth out of him because he's not human, Tab. And after killing that bitch, he even _admitted_ as much to me."

"So you beat the bloody shit out of him?!" she hisses, throwing a hand in his direction.

"He admitted to everything, Tabitha. _Everything._ Even purposely letting me get turned because he just didn't have any feelings about it. I could have killed somebody then. I attacked Ben and Lisa. I could have _killed_ them!"

Her hand flies to her mouth in shock at the information. "I…I didn't know," she mutters. "Are-are they okay? Are you…are you _really_ sure he did that on purpose?"

"They're okay. Mostly. And he _told_ me he did."

This time, when she cautiously steps sideways away from Dean, he remains in place, arms still folded over his chest as he silently watches her approach their younger brother.

As she crouches down to gently touch her younger brother's bloody and slack face, she quietly asks in defeat, "How can we be sure?" Despite having some reservations about Sam not being human, her mind can't forget how strange he's seemed even in the short time she's been around him again. She knows that _something_ isn't right with him.

"That's why you're here," Dean gruffly tells her.

"Me?" she questions, turning and rising to her feet again in confusion.

"Castiel's the only one I can think of that can help right now. And he ain't exactly answering my call."

She ducks her head as she feels her cheeks flush, muttering to herself, "Wonder why? You were so welcoming the last time you called him down here."

"He deserved what he got and more," Dean snaps in return. "After what he's done, screwing my little sister behind my back. But right now…right now we need to put your little—" he waves a hand at her in a shooing gesture, his lip curling as he coughs, "—indiscretion aside and focus on more…imminent problems."

Looking away from her, he folds and refolds his arms over his chest, standing ramrod stiff as he gruffly directs her, "So… Call him."

Tabitha paces nervously as she runs a hand through her hair and wrings her fingers, trying to work up the courage to call to the angel she'd gone so long without seeing, and now calling for the second time in as many days.

"Would you do it already and stop fidgeting like a blushing virgin waiting for her prom date? We both know _that_ particular little birdie has flown the coop."

"Bite me," she snaps back, not stopping in her circuitous pacing.

"What?! Just get it over with," he angrily huffs. "Not like I don't already know how that frickin' mook will make house-calls for _you_."

Stopping in front of him, she rages, "Stop acting like a jealous bitch. What happened between me and him had nothing to do with _you_. So stop trying to _make_ it about _you_. And it's been over for a long time, so excuse me if I'm still a little on edge about how to do this. Not to mention a little weirded out by you knowing."

"Oh, _you're_ weirded out?" he huffs, poking back at her. "Try it from my side!"

She screams once more in wordless frustration before stomping away and sarcastically calling out before she loses her nerve, "Castiel, Castiel?! Where for art thou, Castiel?!"

"Oh, excuse me while I gag," Dean mutters to himself.

Ignoring her brother, she continues calling, "Castiel! Kinda need your help down here. Again. Well…not exactly like last time. But you know what?! You and I aren't done talking yet either, so get back down here! I've got a few things to say about what you said to me!"

"I'm here," Castiel says to her back.

Jumping and spinning to face him, Tabitha immediately lays into him, "I should kick your ass for what you said and did in front of Jessie before."

"I told the human nothing untrue," he factually supplies, giving a slight, but careless shrug.

Stomping closer, Dean inserts himself between the pair, shoving the angel with unnecessary force to turn him towards their still bound brother. "Right now isn't the time for whatever little domestic dispute the three of you have going on. _That's_ why we called you here."

"He needs help," Tabitha points out, gesturing to their brother. "Something's…something's wrong with him."

As ever, Castiel seems oblivious to the palpable tension that continues in the room, turning to bend down and examine Sam who groans and appears to stir slightly at last. As the angel approaches her younger brother, Tabitha backs up, needing space between them. But when her older brother darkly sneers at her, decides she needs space from him, too.

"What happened?" Castiel questions the siblings behind him.

" _He_ did," Tabitha snidely replies, jerking a thumb at her older brother. "Because he's convinced _that's_ not our brother."

After a short perusal of the in question brother, Castiel tells them, "You're right. He looks terrible."

He turns to inquire of Dean, " _You_ did this?"

Sam finally seems to awaken, squinting through swollen eyes as he asks the angel in front of him, "Cas?" Then, struggling against his bound hands behind his back, demands, "What's—let me go."

Ignoring him, Castiel roughly peels one of his eyes open as he questions Dean, "Has he been feverish?"

Not seeming concerned by the angel's less than gentle bedside manner, he demands of Sam, "Have you?"

"No. Why?" Sam replies, trying unsuccessfully to pull away from the prodding angel.

"Is he speaking in tongues?" the angel continues, then without awaiting Dean, asks Sam, "Are you speaking in tongues?"

Confused, Sam answers, "No. What are you…" Spotting Tabitha sitting Indian-style on a table against the far wall from their older brother, Sam questions, "Tabitha? What are you doing here? What's going on?"

Nervously biting her lip and darting a look at her brooding older brother, Tabitha suggests to Sam, "Just…answer his questions."

Sam turns back to the angel to incredulously ask, "Are you diagnosing me?"

"You better hope he can," Dean forebodingly warns.

While the angel feels his pulse at his neck, Sam replies, "You really think that this is—"

Cutting him off and springing to his feet, Dean harshly points out, "What, you think that there's a clinic out there for people who just pop out of Hell? Wrong. He asks, you answer! Then you shut your hole. You got it?"

"Tabitha?!" Sam pleads, turning towards his sister when it becomes obvious Dean won't help him.

Biting at her thumbnail and not looking her younger brother in the eye, Tabitha warns him, "Just do what Dean says."

"How much do you sleep?" Castiel suddenly asks.

"I don't."

The reply startles Tabitha, bringing her to her feet as she stands on the other side of her older brother, avoiding the angel as she stares down at Sam.

"At all?" she questions in surprise, shocked by the realization that her suspicions and Dean's accusations about him might actually bear some weight.

"Not since I got back," Sam replies.

As Tabitha, Dean, and Castiel share measuring looks, all former awkwardness between them momentarily forgotten, Dean turns to ask Sam, "And it never occurred to you that there might be something off about that?!"

"Of course it did, Dean," Sam blithely replies. "I-I just never told you."

As the angel maneuvers behind their bound brother, Dean asks the angel, "What?"

Focusing on the youngest Winchester and not answering the oldest, Castiel continues, "Sam… What are you feeling now?"

Scoffing, Sam tells them, "I feel like my nose is broken."

Correcting him, Castiel explains, "No, that's a physical sensation. How do you _feel_?"

"Well, I think—"

"Feel," the angel stresses.

"I…don't know."

The dark look the angel gives Dean and Tabitha speaks volumes, but Dean still angrily backs away with a look of accusation when Castiel begins removing his belt.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Put your damn clothes back on!" he snaps at the angel. "There's no friggin' time for you two to fool around!"

Folding the belt over in his hands, Castiel darts a look back and forth between Dean and towards Tabitha, whom Dean also throws accusatory looks at.

"I'm taking it off for Sam," Castiel points out.

"What the hell, man! That's _wrong_!"

"Shut the hell up," Tabitha snaps at her older brother, stepping closer as the angel approaches Sam with the folded belt.

"This will be unpleasant," the angel warns Sam, bringing the belt toward Sam's face.

"What—"

Castiel cuts him off to direct, "Bite down on this."

"What the hell are you doing, Castiel?" Tabitha asks as he places the belt in her brother's mouth.

"Stay back, Tabitha," the angel warns, throwing a warding hand in her direction.

Shockingly, she seems to hit an invisible wall, stopped cold in place by the angel's gesture. But before she can think to be shocked by it, the angel continues giving her younger brother warnings.

"If there's someplace that you find soothing, you should go there. In your mind."

Before she can snap at the angel to release his sudden hold on her, she watches the appalling sight of the angel's hand disappearing into the pit of her brother's stomach. As he gasps and moans, contorting in pain, she shivers with the welling of angelic power all around her, stumbling backwards and nearly falling to her knees before the power subsides and Castiel withdraws his hand from her brother.

Dean give her a curious look as she pants to regain her breath, but her sole focus is on the angel, shocked by the sheer power she'd felt emanate from him, power that she's only felt rivaled by a few of the strongest archangels.

Castiel steps towards her in concern, but stops when she steps back just as quickly, baffled by what she'd felt coming from him.

As his eyes dart between all three of them, Dean finally asks, "Did you find anything?"

Turning away from her, Castiel tells Dean, "No."

Somewhat hesitantly, Dean asks, "So that's good news?"

"I'm afraid not. Physically, he's perfectly healthy."

"Then what?" Tabitha asks, still a little breathless from the power Castiel had unleashed.

"It's his soul. It's gone."

Again, all three turn to stare wordlessly at the still bound Sam.

"How the hell can that be?" Tabitha whispers in question.

Dean seems to shake himself from his stupor, pacing away as he scoffs and agrees with her, "Yeah. What she said. Just… One more time, like I'm five. What do you mean he's got no—"

Castiel moves to stand between the two siblings, looking between brother and sister as he explains to them, "Somehow, when Sam was resurrected, it was without his soul."

"Okay," Tabitha slowly agrees, trying to understand the baffling possibility. "Then where is it?"

The angel glances at their brother before replying, "My guess is…still in the cage with Michael and Lucifer."

Rubbing at her temples with her fingertips, Tabitha wearily asks, "Okay, so, if he's all…soulless now…is he even still Sam?"

Dean and the angel turn to stare at the bound Winchester as Castiel ponders, "Well, you pose an interesting philosophical question."

"Yeah, 'cause that's what I was aiming for," she tiredly snips back at him. "I was really hoping we could have a philosophical debate about what makes a human human. Let's not forget to throw in artificial intelligence into the debate."

Huffing at the pair, Dean tells the angel, "Well, then, just get it back."

"Dean."

"Well, you pulled _me_ out," Dean quickly points out.

"It took several angels to rescue you, and you weren't nearly as well guarded. Sam's soul is in Lucifer's cage. There's a difference, a big difference. It's not possible."

Annoyed, Tabitha stalks closer to snap, "Well, find one. We can't just leave him all tied up and soulless like this. We have to do _something_."

She turns to look at her older brother, hoping that he might have some kind of idea, but sees him squinting suspiciously at her.

"What?" she demands.

He shrugs a little. "Just wondering if there's something wrong with you, too. You know, besides the whole screwing angels part. You died, too. Then come back all friggin' mysterious like. _Maybe_ there's something off with you, too."

Rolling her eyes at him and crossing her arms, she sarcastically reminds him, "Yeah, 'cause I _certainly_ wasn't compelled to tell you the truth yesterday. I was able to just let the good ole curse roll _right off me_. Just like friggin' soulless over here."

When she throws an off-handed gesture his way, Sam takes the opportunity to softly interrupt them by asking, "So, are you gonna untie me?"

"No," Dean immediately snaps.

Eyes narrowing on him, Tabitha chimes in, "No talking from the soulless kids right now. Let the grownups talk." Turning back to Dean, she reminds him, "Do you _really_ think there's any way in hell I would have told you everything I did the other day if I hadn't been perfectly human and _compelled_ to spill the beans?"

Snidely he tells her, "Well, maybe you knew I'd find out about him and you spilled your little secrets just so you could use that argument now to trick me."

Hitting her forehead, she groans, "Oh my god. One brother is soulless and the other is friggin' brainless." Removing her hand and staring him down, she tells him, "That's the most retarded thing I think I've heard you say in a long time."

"Guys," Sam interrupts again. "Can we get back to letting me loose?"

After shooting him a dark look, Tabitha moves on from arguing with Dean to tell her younger brother, "Not right now. Not until…we figure out what to do with you."

Trying to argue again, Sam beings, "Listen, I'm not gonna—"

Cutting him off, Dean tells him, "Sam, how the hell are we even supposed to let you out of this room?"

"Dean, I'm not some psycho," Sam attempts.

Stomping closer, Tabitha stops beside Dean to demand, "Did you or did you not purposely allow Dean to get turned by a vampire?"

"Well—"

"Oh my god," she cuts him off, shoving her hands in her hair at his tempered response. "He wasn't exaggerating. You really _did_ do that. How the hell could you think that was okay? Soulless or not."

"I knew he'd be okay," Sam argues, straining against the chair.

"See, I told you," Dean triumphantly tells her, still frowning down at Sam as he crosses his arms over his chest.

Focusing again on Dean, Sam tries telling him, "I didn't want you to get hurt. I was just trying to stop the vamps."

"By letting him become one?!" Tabitha shouts in exasperation, "Oh, I see. Not only are you soulless, you've lost your friggin' mind along with all sense and reason, too! That makes much more sense now. Thanks. I've got _two_ brainless brothers."

Sam wordlessly huffs at her, but still focusing on Dean, says, "I'm sorry. It won't ever happen again. Please let me go."

Dean pauses to shoot their sister a dark look before asking Sam, "You're kidding, right?"

"Well, what are you guys gonna do, just keep me locked up in here forever?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Dean responds.

"Okay, fine, look, I get it. I get it, guys. I was wrong," Sam again tries. "But I'm telling you I-I'm trying to get right. It's still me."

"Is it really?" Tabitha huffs.

"Yes. So just let me go."

"No way in hell," Dean immovably replies.

Both siblings move to walk away from Sam, but stop when he sighs and replies, "I didn't want it to come to this."

Somehow, he easily shrugs out of the ropes holding him, and stands holding them out towards Dean, telling them, "You're not gonna hold me, Dean, Tab—not here, not in a panic room, not anywhere." He unwraps the rope from his wrist to let it fall to the floor, telling them, "You're stuck with the soulless guy, so you guys might as well work with me. Let's fix this," he reasonably argues.

Warningly, Dean steps forward to say, "I'm gonna be watching every move you make."

"Fine. Sounds about right to me," Sam agrees, then turns to look at Tabitha for her agreement.

Frowning, she replies, "I'm thinking you go nowhere and do nothing without…supervision of someone bearing a soul from now on."

"Sure," he continues to affably agree.

Heaving an extended sigh as she stares at her brother, Tabitha finally asks, "Castiel…can you…clean him up or something I guess."

Wordlessly, the angel steps forward, pressing his fingertips to their brother's forehead, healing the damage Dean had done to him.

Already making plans, Dean tells them, "All right, if we're gonna figure out what happened to your soul, then we need to find who yanked you out." Turning to Sam, he asks, "You say you don't know?"

"No idea."

"Then we start a list," Dean continues in determination. "If it's so hard to spring someone out of the box, then who's got that kind of muscle?"

"I don't know," Castiel replies, his eyes dropping away from Tabitha as she moves closer to her brother.

When the angel's eyes dart back to stare thoughtfully at her, Dean pauses to pointedly ask her, "What about you?"

"Me?" she replies in surprise. "What about me?"

"You were dead. Then you weren't. What happened? How'd _you_ get out?" Dean demands, puffing his chest out in challenge.

After huffing in frustration, she reminds him, "I already told you. I don't have a clue. One second I was dead. Then I was standing on a road watching you drive away. That's all I know."

"Yeah, where have I heard that before?" Dean growls back. "Oh right, from soulless Sammy over here. Excuse me if I don't believe you."

A flurry of emotions flitter across her face in an instant, ranging from fear, apprehension, weariness, sadness, anger…to a myriad of others before she schools her face and slowly tells him, "I was dead. And…what happened then…what I saw…" She taps her heart as she speaks, her body shifting nervously as she hugs her arms around herself. "It has no bearing on anything going on right now," she finally tells her brother. "What happened when I was dead was _my_ …." she struggles for the right words. Finally, she finishes in a soft voice, "It was _my_ death experience or whatever. And it's not something that's up for sharing. Ever." More vehemently, she tells him, "So don't _ever_ ask me about it again."

The angel had been silent during the sibling's discourse, but shifts their attention by focusing on Sam, asking, "You have no memory of your resurrection?"

"I woke up in a field. That's all I got."

"No clues? None?" the angel continues, eyes darting back to Tabitha who still watches with her arms wrapped consolingly around herself.

"I've got _one_ ," Sam replies. He shrugs as he looks at his siblings and explains, "There's always Samuel."

"Huh?" Tabitha hums, her posture loosening some with the main focus being shifted from her back to Sam. "I thought you just said you didn't know who or what pulled you out."

"Not _me_ Samuel. Our grandfather, Samuel," Sam corrects her.

When she turns questioningly towards him, Dean shrugs and lets out a little huff. "Oh yeah, right. You don't know because you weren't _around_. You were too busy running off screwing angels and lying about being dead. My bad."

Spreading her arms wide, she ticks off on her fingers, "Okay, one, haven't screwed _any_ angels in well over a year now. Two, it was _one_ angel. And three, I wasn't lying about being dead. I was. Briefly. And I didn't know you still thought I was."

"Whatever," Dean angrily brushes off, then sharply tells her, "Same day something yanked Sam up out of the pit, something yanked gramps down out of Heaven. And Sammy here spent basically the past year hunting with him and the other members of the Campbell hunting clan. Without telling me either."

After a few minutes to digest the information, Tabitha asks, "There's more Campbells left alive? Like…we actually have relatives?"

"Guess so," Dean dismissively shrugs.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Tabitha asks, "You know, how weird are our lives that you tell me our dead grandfather is back and out there running around somewhere with a whole bunch of other relatives I didn't know we had, and that doesn't actually seem all that farfetched to me?"

With a roll of his eyes, Dean walks to the door to grab his coat. He pulls it on as he tells her, "Much as I'd love to stand around here talking with soulless, dead-angel-walking, and my sister the angel layer about how abnormal our lives are, I think it's time we get on the road so we can go question our dead grandfather about why he's not in Heaven anymore."

He stalks broodily out to the car, leaving the others to follow after him as he opens the driver's door to the Impala.

Attempting to lighten her brother's mood about her past…indiscretions, Tabitha pulls her own black leather coat on over her dark red halter-top and jokes, "Well, when you put our lives like that, I mean…me sleeping with an angel actually seems pretty mundane."

She pauses across the car from him, the rear door in her hand as he stops to glare across the roof at her. Then he turns to glare at the angel beside him that had been reaching for the other rear door.

Still staring warningly at the angel, her older brother growls at her, "Get in the damn car, Tabitha."

Afraid the angel might not be getting the hint, she hisses at him, "Maybe you should just meet us there, Castiel."

* * *

The compound her brothers lead her into is buzzing with activity when they arrive. Even at the early hours of the predawn morning.

Several hunters readying various weapons look up to mark their entrance, most with less than pleasant expressions on their faces.

Dean, however, nonchalantly asks his siblings, "Gramps throw a barbecue, leave us off the e-vite list?"

"When's that ever stopped you from crashing a party?" Tabitha mutters to herself.

"Hey," Dean warns her. "Shut your cake-hole."

A relatively handsome blonde approaches them, happily calling out, "Sam!" and laughing as he embraces their younger brother. Far more sedately, he greets the oldest Winchester with, "Dean."

"Hello, Newman," Dean snarks, shaking the man's hand.

He pumps Dean's hand once, and then moves on to focus on Tabitha, grinning saucily as he asks, "Well, well, well. Who's the hottie?"

Maneuvering slightly in front of her, Dean clears his throat pointedly and replies. "The… _hottie_ …would be our _sister_."

"Oh. Right," the man more quietly answers. "Sorry about that," he tells her.

Before she can speak, Dean demands, "Where's the man?"

Still giving Tabitha a strange look, the man jerks a thumb over his shoulder, indicating to an office in the back of the poorly lit warehouse.

Without preamble, Dean marches across, not bothering to knock on the closed door as he shoves it open.

Looking annoyed, the older bald man she'd only seen pictures of before, flatly greets Dean with, "Come right on in."

"Need to ask you a few questions," Dean tells their grandfather.

"What's wrong?" he asks in annoyed disinterest.

Tabitha files into the small space behind her brothers, taking the time to shut the door behind them. When she turns around, she sees the blood drain from Samuel's face as he slowly stands, his eyes fixated on her.

When their grandfather doesn't speak, Dean glances back to see what has his attention. "Oh, right," he realizes. "You didn't meet Tab yet. This is our sister, Tabitha. Who, as it turns out, ain't dead either."

"Mary," Samuel whispers, then seems to shake himself, finally tearing his eyes away. He frowns as he tells her, "You'd almost look like your mother, I guess. If it weren't for the hair and hooker clothes."

Frowning back, Tabitha tugs self-consciously at her halt-top, mumbling in return, "My hair is normally blonde. Like mom's was."

Dean glances back at her, one eyebrow raised as he tells her, "Gotta say I'm actually agreeing with gramps here. I still hate the hair and clothes."

Her annoyance reasserting itself, she shrugs and steps around to the side of the room, crossing her arms as she reminds him, "I've already told you, it's called a _cover_. I'm not _supposed_ to look like I used to."

"Well, great job there, Sydney Bristow," he taunts.

Interrupting, Samuel asks again, "Like I said, what's wrong?" But his eyes continue to dart back with measuring looks at Tabitha, who shifts nervously at his continued glances.

Forging on, Dean demands, "The day you got back, what happened?"

Samuel finally tears his attention away from Tabitha, huffing before telling Dean, "We've been over this."

"Well, recap it for our wingman."

Castiel suddenly appears beside Tabitha and between her and Samuel.

"Now?" he whispers to her.

Sighing, she assures him, "Yeah, now was good, Castiel."

The angel glances down when he notices her hands still tugging a bit nervously at the hem of her halt-top, trying to pull it down to meet the top of her low cut leather pants and leans closer to whisper to her, "I don't think you look like a hooker." His words force her to cover her face in mortification.

Of course, the angel's version of whispering leaves no one out of the conversation, though even if that had been his attempt, he completely dashes it by turning to Sam and Dean to ask, "A hooker is another term for a prostitute, yes?"

Dean starts after the angel, only to be held off by Sam who wraps his arms around the oldest Winchester. Immobile but not silenced, Dean threatens the angel, "You're still on my shit-list, man. Stop making friggin' bedroom eyes at our sister."

"Look, as much fun as this disturbing conversation is," Samuel tiredly interrupts again, "I'd like to know what's going on and who _he_ is."

Snidely, Tabitha sarcastically mimics while still covering her face, "Oh, I'm Castiel. Idiot Angel of the Lord."

Ignoring her sarcasm, Samuel curiously asks, "This is Castiel?" After a short beat, he observes, "You're scrawnier than I pictured."

"This is a vessel," the angel informs him. "My true form is approximately the size of your Chrysler Building." He lowers his voice and leans closer to Tabitha to assure her, "I'm much bigger than I appear."

"Oh Christ," she huffs, continuing to cover her heated face. "Someone _please_ kill me now."

"Gladly," Dean mutters under his breath, then haughtily tells the angel, "All right, all right, whatever. Quit bragging. She's already seen the size of your Chrysler Building."

Turning to focus on Samuel, he continues in a clipped tone, "So, you were dead—kinda like _they're_ about to be—and…"

"And, pow, I was on Elton Ridge," Samuel finishes. "Don't know how. Don't know why."

When Dean gives him a measuring look, Samuel assures them, "I got nothing to hide, kids."

"Well, you mind if Cas here double-checks?"

When the angel begins to roll up his sleeve beside her, Tabitha finally lowers her hands and warns their grandfather with a cringe, "Not gonna lie, this is gonna hurt like hell."

After the ensuing screams from their grandfather, the office door flies open once more, the pretty-boy that had greeted them before rushing in with a shotgun as Castiel unrolls his sleeve and Tabitha helps to steady the panting Samuel, even as she pants at the unfurled power as well.

Her brothers turn to stop pretty-boy, hands held up as Sam assures him, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay."

"What the hell?" he demands in return.

"Angel cavity search," Dean assures him.

"He'll be fine in a minute," Tabitha tacks on, rolling her eyes at Dean's choice of words.

Samuel finally looks up into Tabitha's eyes, staring at her with something almost tender in them before he shoves her away and assures the pretty-boy, "I'm fine, Christian. Just give us a minute."

"But—"

"Just give us a minute," Samuel commands.

Reluctantly, Christian backs out of the room, closing the door behind him as he goes.

Still struggling to breathe, Samuel demands, "What the hell was that about?"

Ignoring the question and instead gesturing with a tilt of his head, Castiel assures the siblings, "His soul is intact."

"What?" Samuel huffs, then adds, "Of course I have a—"

Seeming to catch on, he pauses to stare at Sam, asking him, "What's going on, Sam?"

"Whatever dragged me out…left a piece behind."

When Samuel scoffs but doesn't seem shocked, Sam asks him, "Did you know?"

"No, but I…I knew it was something. I… You're a hell of a hunter, Sam, but…the truth is, sometimes you scare me." Shaking his head, he asks, "So, what's the deal here? How do we fix this?" He glances suspiciously at Tabitha. "What about her? You said she was supposed to be dead, too. She…got a soul?"

When her brothers turn to her with suspicious eyes once more, she reminds them, "Hey, don't look at me. I sleep. I have normal human emotions. My _soul_ is perfectly intact."

"Except, you don't know where you were or how you got back either," Dean reminds her, frowning contemplatively at her.

When Castiel begins rolling up his sleeve again, her hands slid to her hips as she lowly warns him, "Put it away, Casanova. We don't play those kinds of games anymore."

Dean jumps forward to grab the angel's elbow, jerking him back as he groans, "Ew, gross, Cas. No. Just… _no_. You're not…reaching inside my sister to look for her soul."

He shrugs nonchalantly, carelessly replying, "She shows no signs of her soul not being intact anyway."

Breaking the awkward tension, Samuel asks, "So, what's the deal here? How do we fix this? How do we get his soul back?"

"We don't know yet, but we have to," Dean assures him.

Quick to assure them, Samuel offers, "Well, I'm here to help of course. What leads you working?"

Sam replies, "A bunch of dead ends and you."

"Well, then, we'll just have to dig."

Unnoticed by the others, Castiel had wandered to look out the window, suddenly seeming distracted as he tells them, "Sam, Dean…Tabitha…I have to get back."

"You're leaving?" Dean incredulously asks.

"I'm in the middle of a civil war."

"And we're kinda in the middle of the case of the missing soul," Tabitha snaps. "Our brother sort of needs fixing here."

The angel turns to stare at her, voice flat but eyes filled with emotion as he tells her, "Of course. Your problems always come first."

Huffing, she mutters, "Jesus, Castiel, I—"

He cuts her off to say, "I'll be in touch." Then disappears.

As they all stare into the empty space beside Tabitha, Samuel sighs and tells them, "Would've asked her boyfriend to stick around for a beer."

"He's not my boyfriend," Tabitha huffs, her words drowned out by Dean even more vehemently huffing, "He's _not_ her boyfriend."

Then his eyes narrow on her as he warningly asks, "Right?"

"No!" she rushes to assure him. "Of course he's not!"

Changing the focus once more, Dean asks Samuel, "So, what's with the book club outside?"

Samuel, who had wandered over to grab an ammo box, pauses to shortly reply, "Putting together a hunt."

"That's a lot of guys for one hunt," Dean points out.

Seeming to know something his siblings don't, Sam asks, "You found him, didn't you?"

"Who?" Dean asks as Samuel continues grabbing duffle bags from around the room.

Glancing at Dean, Sam dismissively explains, "He's got a lead on the Alpha vamp."

"You do?" Tabitha suspiciously asks, paying more attention to the things their grandfather is gathering.

"Maybe," Samuel disregards. When that only peaks the interest of the Winchesters, he nods in agreement. "Yeah."

"How'd you track him down?" Dean wonders.

"Yeah," Tabitha agrees, having only heard the broad-strokes about Alphas from Dean on the ride over as he'd been explaining the brothers' previous encounters with their recently un-deceased grandfather. "I was under the impression they were damn near impossible to track down."

After glancing back and forth between the oldest and middle sibling, Samuel pulls out a machete and tells them only, "We're good."

"That's all we get?" Dean asks in surprise. "'We're good'?"

"When's the run?" Sam wants to know, not seeming at all concerned with the lack of shared information.

Hesitating slightly, Samuel finally relents to say, "Dawn."

"You didn't call me? Why?" Sam wants to know, finally seeming slightly upset.

Though Samuel doesn't say anything, Dean seems to puzzle it out, supplying, "'Cause of me." When their grandfather looks down, Dean continues saying, "You don't trust me very much, do you? Especially when it comes to big game like this."

"That's not true," he argues in return.

Seizing the opportunity, Dean tells him, "Okay, well, then, we're in."

"No offense, but—"

Cutting off the argument, Dean points out, "So you _don't_ trust me."

After giving him a look that he then encompasses Tabitha in, Samuel answers, "No, I just don't know either of you. Not like I know Sam."

"Alright," Dean agrees. "You call the plays. One hundred percent. I'm— _we're_ —here to listen."

"Since when?" Samuel scoffs.

"Big daddy bloodsucker? I ain't gonna miss that. But this is your deal. Okay? I get it. We'll follow your lead. I trust _you_."

As they leave warehouse a few minutes later, Dean hisses to his siblings, "I don't trust him. Dude's hiding something."

"Duh," Tabitha agrees, stuffing her hands in her pockets as she follows her brothers and prepares herself for what she needs to tell them.

"What?" Sam scoffs, surprised by his siblings.

"I can feel it," Dean snaps. Looking at Sam, he tells their younger brother, "And if you weren't Robo-Sam, you'd feel it, too."

"Huh," Sam grunts in surprise.

"What?" Dean asks as they walk towards the Impala.

Stopping, Sam tells them, "Just…you. Both of you. Saying you guys don't trust family."

Tabitha and Dean share a look, both knowing that family doesn't end, let alone _begin_ with blood. But both decide against delving into that conversation with their soul-impaired brother.

Instead, Dean tells his younger siblings, "Look, we hang close, we blend in, and we see what we can pick up."

"You think Samuel's connected to this whole soul thing?" Sam questions.

"I still think he's the only lead we got."

Dean jerks his head then, gesturing back to the warehouse. "I say we go back in there and find out what we can. Sam, they're comfortable around you, so go put in some face time. Tabitha, you go create some kind of distraction. Keep their eyes on you. I'll go take a peek in gramps's office. He was hiding something in there."

Knowing that she finally has to say something, Tabitha pipes up to say, "Actually, you boys are going to have to run this little mission on your own."

Dean turns to her in shock. "What? Don't tell me that you're not suspicious of that man, either."

"No," she argues. "I'm suspicious as hell. But I can't stay guys, I came to see if we could find any answers, but I have to get back now."

Rolling his eyes and crossing his arms, Dean challenges, "What, back to your clueless boyfriend? You have to be joking. You're just gonna bail now?"

Scratching the back of her head, Tabitha admits, "Weeellll, turns out Jessie isn't _quite_ so clueless anymore."

"Meaning what?" Dean asks.

"When you crashed our little barbecue the other day, Jessie kinda overheard us talking at one point. Heard you call me 'Tab' and heard you make reference to me having been a cop." Shuffling her feet, Tabitha continues, "And when he kinda threatened to run my fingerprints down at the station, I was sorta forced to come clean to him. About…pretty much everything."

" _Everything_?" Dean repeats, and then gestures around at the decrepit lot and warehouse around them. "Like _everything_ everything?"

"Pretty much," she agrees, kicking the dirt with her foot. "At least as much as I could over a nearly day long window of conversation. Which actually, kinda left me having to skim over a lot. We've kinda been through a lot over the years. More than a person realizes until they try to retell it all."

"Why didn't you tell me sooner that he knows?"

Scoffing, Tabitha gestures wildly at Sam. "We were kinda busy dealing with and talking about soulless here."

Coughing lightly, Sam reminds them, "My name is still Sam, you know."

Both siblings roll their eyes and continue to ignore him.

"So he knows? About monsters and demons and shit like that?" Dean asks in surprise.

"And angels," she mutters in response. When Dean's eyebrows fly upwards, she defends, "Well, I had to figure out some way of proving to him that I wasn't crazy. Guy in a trench coat appearing out of thin air in your bedroom tends to make anyone a believer."

At Dean's narrowing and darkening gaze, she rushes to insist, "He was only helping to demonstrate that I wasn't crazy."

"Jury's still out on that one," Dean mutters to himself.

Sighing in frustration, Tabitha shoves her hands into her pockets again, reminding Dean, "Look, like I said, I have to get back. Jessie and I were still sort of in the middle of things when you called. And I kind of ran out and have been gone now for _a few_ more hours than I'd told him. I need to get back and hash things out with him. If nothing else, to make sure that he doesn't start asking around or looking into Tabitha Winchester. That would open a whole 'nother can of worms if the FBI were to start thinking that I was still alive."

"So what are you gonna do?" Dean asks, moving to stand in front of her. "Go back there and be this doe-eyed little version of yourself that you cooked up for him? Is that really what you want to do?"

Looking uncomfortably away at the question, she hedges, "I don't know. I honestly don't. But I do know that that man has been good to me. And he deserves for me to at least go back there so I can finish hashing this out with _him_. For over a year, he's been there for me. When no one else has."

Arms flexing as Dean tries to reel in his anger, he snaps at her, " _I_ would have been. So don't put this on me. _I'd_ of been there, Tabitha. _You_ were the one that wasn't there."

"I wasn't there because it wasn't fair to _you_ , Dean. I know you would have been there. You'd have sacrificed your own shot at happiness to be there for me, and that wasn't fair. So I made the choice to let you stay there and be happy." Kicking the dirt again and looking down at her feet, she softly admits, "It wasn't _you_ I needed to be there for me."

When Dean clears his throat uncomfortably and shuffles his own feet, she sniffs once and gruffly tells him, "So. Anyway. I gotta get back. You boys play your little spy games here, and I'll head back so I can figure out what's next for me."

"You're not gonna marry that douche, are you?" Dean hesitantly asks, still not quite meeting her eyes after the soft admission from her that neither wants to acknowledge.

Chuckling softly, she tells him, "No. That much I know for sure. I can't marry him." Shaking her head as she thinks about the plain white gold and diamond ring she'd known was in Jessie's sock drawer for weeks, and thinking to herself that she could never wear such an ordinary ring, she comments, "Maybe I'm just not the marrying kind of girl."

Yet, even as she says it, she can almost feel the phantom weight of a black gold and ruby ring on her finger.

Coughing to dispel the image from her mind, she looks around as she wonders aloud, "Well, since we're all family here, I don't suppose any of our relatives would mind if I _borrowed_ one of their cars, would they?"

Slow smile spreading, Dean suggests, "Why don't you take Christian's."

* * *

Almost twenty-four hours pass from the time Tabitha had originally left her house and the time she finally ditches Christian's car and hitchhikes the rest of the way home. After telling Jessie she'd be gone for "a bit," she's somewhat apprehensive about what he'll think of "a bit" actually being an entire day.

Knowing she can't stand on her front step forever, postponing the inevitable, she lets herself through the front door, cautiously calling out, "Jess? It's me, uh, Chase, er, Tabitha. Whatever. I'm home!"

When only a darkened and silent house greets her, she sighs in relief, knowing that she has a few more hours to craft how she's going to explain where she's been. Knowing that he's probably at work, she relaxes at her surprise gift of more time.

Experimentally, she tests, "Sorry I was gone for an entire day, honey. I just had to run a little errand with my brothers—brainless and soulless—and my former lover to check on our once dead and recently revived grandfather."

Scoffing to herself as she removes her jacket and tosses it across the back of the couch, she groans, "Maybe Hallmark makes a card for that."

Peering around the house, she's relieved to see that the mess from their party days before is finally picked up, and even a few more of their boxes unpacked it seems.

Heading for the stairs, she wonders to herself, "Wonder if he torched those sheets yet?"

Partway up the stairwell, she pauses to take in the sight of numerous framed pictures throughout their courtship hanging on either wall of the staircase.

In each picture, she's smiling that same picture-perfect smile she'd remembered. So perfectly timed. So perfectly poised.

And so perfectly false.

The urge to strike out and knock every frame off the wall tugs at her fiercely.

No matter the picture, it's the same smile on her face. One of her best, prettiest smiles, she thinks. The perfect hint of teeth, the perfect degree of lift at the corners of her lips. The perfect soft expression in her eyes.

Yet somehow, she's suddenly desperate to see just _one_ picture of her _real_ smile.

The one where she mouth is spread just a bit too wide. The one where she's showing a bit too much of her slightly crooked teeth. The one that she's always hated so much because it makes her mouth look wider than her face.

But the one that tells her she's actually and _truly_ happy.

She can hardly remember the last time she saw her actual real smile.

It's been so rare in her life that she's had cause to truly smile like that, and though she'd always hated that smile, she feels such a strong yearning now to see it again.

She wonders if she ever will.

The sight of those erroneously happy pictures reminds her of her last words with her older brother before she'd left Samuel's compound. He'd asked her when she'd be coming back. _If_ she'd be coming back.

She hadn't had an answer for him then. And she's not sure she has one now.

All she knows is that _something_ has to change.

But a part of her wonders if she's willing to give up her dream of living a normal life. Even if this life doesn't _quite_ live up to what she'd imagined. She's not sure how to be Tabitha Winchester again, but how can she remain Chase Jones?

With a sigh, she ascends the rest of the stairs, knowing that she needs to finish her conversation with Jessie first. Find some kind of resolution with him. Whatever it might be.

He'd been good to her. Better than she probably deserved, and she knows she owes it to him to somehow work out where they go from here. If anywhere.

Her mind is still fogged with thought when she enters their bedroom, her feet slipping on the slick hardwood floors so quickly that she nearly falls face first onto the thick rug at the foot of their bed. Only her hands keep her from smacking her face, her palms and knees taking the brunt of her fall.

"What the hell?" she mutters to herself, pulling one hand away from the sticky, wet rug squishing underneath her palms.

Her sluggish mind is slow to process what she sees, her mind first registering the pungent, sharp, and achingly familiar copper smell filling her nose. Then, her brain begins to piece together the sight of the dark red viscous fluid coating her hands and knees.

As her eyes dart around the room, the spattered blood and scattered body parts cause her throat to work convulsively as she chokes back a gag, falling backwards and scrambling away on her hands and butt until her back slams against the far wall of her bedroom.

But Jessie's cold eyes hold her in place and halt any further retreat, pinning her under an unmoving stare as she instinctively holds back the sob now lodged deep in her throat.

What idiot had ever said the truth would set you free?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ack! Sorry for the long wait again. This chapter was about 85% finished for the longest time; I just couldn't seem to find time to finish that last part. It's been crazy busy at work, and I'm short-staffed. So of course I got sick and have been struggling through work and everything else with bronchitis on top of it.
> 
> But I'm slowly getting better, and did find the time to finish this chapter.
> 
> Which…sorry for the cliffhanger. I'd originally intended to write this chapter a bit further into another part I have planned, but I got to this point and sort of realized this was actually the end of the chapter. Sometimes those little surprises happen to us writers. We plan something out, but then start writing and realize that's just not how the story is gonna happen. :) Stories sometimes just unfold and surprise even us.
> 
> So, anyway, thank you all a million times over for your awesomeness and continued readership and wonderful reviews! Every review just perks me up a bit more and helps to keep me fueled and writing. You're all fantastic!


	4. Chapter 4: Prisoner of the Heart

**Chapter 4: Prisoner of the Heart**

Alternatively flashing red, blue, and white lights throwing her bedroom awash in color finally breaks the hold Jessie's sightless but accusing eyes have on her. Startled into near panic when she hears the sounds of sirens joining the flashing lights, Tabitha swallows her grief and scrambles to carefully peer out the edge of their bedroom window.

Multiple marked and unmarked cop cars join the initial marked cop car that seems to have pulled silently into their front driveway. And from the sounds of the sirens, cop cars are now surrounding their house.

With a coldly calculating eye that shoves down all grief and regrets, Tabitha turns to survey the scene, looking at it with the trained eye of a hardened investigator.

The disarray of the room speaks of a heated fight taking place; furniture overturned and broken. The spray of blood spattering every surface. Not to mention the shredded pieces of what was once a body.

And her own body now covered in blood along with the setting of their bedroom lays the perfect narrative of a lover's quarrel that ended in grisly murder.

A part of her analytical brain notes that the cold congealed blood on the floor and her arrival being so closely timed with that of the police is no coincidence. Whoever had murdered and dismembered Jessie had then patiently waited for her to arrive home to the scene. And that someone had also done a remarkable job of setting her up to appear guilty. Made easier by the fact that for the day of their long discussion, Jessie had called in from work, actually citing a fight between the newly cohabiting couple and the need for some time to sort things out.

She has no doubt that her former boyfriend's colleagues will decide she took drastic and final means to "sort things out."

And though she's certain her boyfriend has been dead for many hours, she can't cite as an alibi that she was with her supposedly dead and wanted brothers, her former angel lover, and her resurrected grandfather discussing her soulless brother. Actually, telling those particular truths has led to nothing but the trouble she currently finds herself in, she grimly thinks to herself.

When fists begin pounding on her locked front door, she springs to action, running to her side of the bed and falling to her knees beside her nightstand. Using her fingernails, she feels along the edge of the mopboard for the slight indentation where her thumbnail fits perfectly, popping it out to reveal the small hidden space within.

She knows there's no time for running now. No time even to find a convincing lie to get herself out of this current mess. All she can do for the moment, is hope to minimize the damage—namely insuring the police force gathered outside doesn't realize her past law enforcement background and wanted status—and keep her eyes open for the first opportunity to escape.

Inside the small hidden space are two objects. An untraceable burner phone and a micro USB drive. Hearing her front door being broken down, she knows she doesn't even have the time to place a phone call, so Tabitha forgoes the burner cell, grabbing only the USB drive and sliding it into her bra, adjusting the girls so that it falls comfortably into the hidden depths of her cleavage.

The mopboard is barely tacked back in place when she hears the stomping footfalls bursting into her bedroom, forcing her to spin around with her hands held high as a multiple of officers burst in, guns drawn and flashlights blinding her gaze. Without even a question to her or a thought of the Miranda, she's jerked forward and thrown onto her face, arms wrenched behind her as they cuff her.

"What in the bleeding 'ell?" she demands, resuming the English accent these men would all be familiar with.

"I'd shut my mouth if I were you," the familiar voice of her boyfriend's partner snarls in her ear as he roughly presses his knee into her spine.

As several men then haul her roughly to her feet, turning her to face Mike, he continues barking, "Get her out of here. Now!"

Knowing she can do nothing but play her part in maintaining her innocence, she shouts, "What's the meaning of this?! Mike! What's going on? Who did this? Who did this to Jessie?!"

With a lifetime of practice in bring forth tears on cue, Tabitha does so in spades, feeling the wetness coat her cheeks as she stares after her boyfriend's partner.

Yet, the older man seems unmoved by her tears, stomping forward to inform her, "I'm gonna see you burn for this, you crazy bitch. I won't rest until I see you spend the rest of your life behind bars for killing my partner."

"What?!" she shouts in practiced disbelief as the two men manhandling her begin shoving her down the stairs. "You've gone bleeding cracked! How could you think I'd hurt Jessie this way? How?!"

By the time she's less than gently placed into the backseat of one of the cruisers, Tabitha has managed to wipe all emotion from her face, save for the slack look of shock she allows to mark her features. She can do nothing more for the moment than wait. Wait, and continue to play the part of shocked and innocent girlfriend. Not that she isn't still equal parts shocked _and_ innocent.

As the cruiser begins moving, Tabitha looks up to mark the furtive glances in the mirror from the young patrolman driving. She doesn't remember his name, but passingly remembers having seen him in the station. Usually with a look of hero-worship in his eyes whenever Jessie had been around. But she'd noted his gaze tracking her own movements more than once and hopes to play that fact to her advantage.

Letting her tears spring to life once more, she asks the young man, "What's going on? Who could have done so terrible a thing to Jessie? Who could have done that?"

The young man looks away uncomfortably at her surging tears, hunching low in the driver seat, seeming to wish to be anywhere else.

Though her tears hadn't gotten her any results yet, she continues to let them fall, rocking her body slightly in the backseat as she mutters to herself in what she hopes passes for the manner of a normal civilian in the throes of shock at finding her boyfriend in so many pieces. She'd certainly interviewed numerous shocked and frightened witnesses in her time. But she'd never been a normal civilian. So forming normal reactions is a bit of a stretch.

Especially when her honed instincts tell her that emotion is a waste in a time like this. Only cold calculation will provide anything useful in tracking down whoever or whatever had been responsible.

Once they reach the buzzing police station, the young patrolman carefully helps her out of the cruiser, cautiously supporting her elbow as he lifts her upwards out of the car. Stumbling towards him, Tabitha bumps her shoulder against the young man, eyes darting to the name on his chest before staring up at him with wide, guileless eyes as she begs him, "Please, Nick. Tell me what's happening! Who killed my boyfriend?"

He stares down into her eyes for a moment, and she sees the moment he's hers. The moment his eyes soften into pity.

"I don't know who would have done that, Chase. But right now, they think _you_ did. So just tell them everything that happened, and you'll be okay."

"Me?" she repeats, letting her eyes widen in exaggerated surprise. "You mean those coppers back there really think _I_ could have done that awful thing?" Bringing on a fresh round of tears, she leans forward, pressing her forehead to the patrolman's chest, letting great body shaking sobs roll through her as she feels Nick awkwardly hold her in his arms, gently patting her back and trying to soothe her.

When she's counted slowly to ten in her mind, she pulls back to innocently ask him, "You couldn't possibly believe I'd do so awful a thing, do you, Nick?"

"No," he instantly agrees. Then tells her, "I know they'll see the truth, too. Just tell them what happened."

Nodding slowly in return, Tabitha turns her body partly, nodding over her shoulder towards her handcuffed hands as she whispers, "Is there any way you could be a dear and remove these? Or at the very least, let me have my hands in front of me? Feels like they were trying to wrench my arms from the bloody socket."

Nick shoots her an apologetic look when he tells her, "I can't take them off. But sure. I can move them so your hands are in front and more comfortable."

As the young man re-cuffs her with her hands in front of her, Tabitha has to suppress a grin at her small victory.

However, that grin is easily quashed when she remembers that she is about to be led into a police department on suspicion of murder. And that all it will take is the running of one little fingerprint to show that she'd been suspected of that before. Just before she'd officially "died." Just like her brothers had.

Her features sink even further into a frown as she stares down at her hands for the first time. Seeing them still coated with Jessie's blood. Seeing the dark and drying patches of it hardening on her shirt from when she'd fallen. Visible proof that Jessie's blood is indeed on her hands.

"I have to take you in now," Nick tells her, interrupting her melancholy thoughts. His voice is filled with remorse.

This time, there's no acting when she's only able to jerk a single nod of her head.

* * *

"Stay here for a moment," Nick tells her, gently easing her into a chair next to one of the empty desks in the bullpen.

For the next several minutes, Tabitha remains a valiant study in the art of the sobbing and distraught victim. Maintaining her shuddering and sobs until all the men in the bullpen that had been alternating between openly staring at her and actually working, finally look away in hopes of avoiding focusing on the uncomfortable sight of a sobbing and emotional woman.

Seizing her chance, Tabitha carefully leans over her knees, appearing to any eyes that _might_ dart her way to merely be doubled over in her grief. Though she uses the opportunity to dislodge the micro USB from her bra, and covertly slips it into the back of the CPU on the floor next to the desk she's seated beside.

She'd never asked Shawn what the USB would do. And he'd only told her it might be her "Get Out of Jail Free Card" if something happened.

Since she has no idea what it does or how long it will take to…do whatever it will do, she's lucky it was such a small USB drive. Plugged into the back of one of the many CPUs in the station, she knows it should easily be overlooked…and possibly never found.

Her only hope is that whatever it does…or whatever it gets Shawn to do…it happens quickly. Because she has every intention of hunting down whatever killed Jessie. And killing it.

"What the hell is she doing sitting out here in the bullpen?!"

Tabitha rises from her position doubled over her knees when she hears Mike's barked demand. Tracking his progress towards her as his eyes predatorily scan the bullpen for the guilty party.

When no one answers, he stops a scant foot from her, a heavy hand clamping down on her shoulder as he scathingly asks, "Who brought her in from the crime scene?!"

Nick slinks closer, obviously terrified at being called out by a superior in front of the whole squad room. "I did, sir. I figured she could wait here for a bit. Just until someone was ready to talk to her."

The heavy hand that had been clamped on her shoulder actually tightens further, prompting an all too realistic yelp from Tabitha as Mike hauls her to her feet out of the chair.

Still focused on the young patrolman, Mike growls at him, "She's a goddamned murder suspect. They go to lockdown in interrogation. Immediately! No wonder you're still a patrolman. You'll never make it off the beat if you can't use your friggin' brains, kid!"

As Mike begins roughly shoving her in the direction she knows leads to interrogation, Tabitha manages to indignantly sputter in her upper-crust British accent, " _Murder_? You can't rightly believe _me_ of murder? Can you, Mike? I know you were good mates with Jessie, too. But I was his girlfriend. You can't be buggered enough to think _I'd_ of done that to him."

They reach the interrogation room before Mike responds. And he's shoving her into one of the seats across from the reflective glass, securing her cuffed hands to the ring bolted to the table before he sits across from her. Dropping heavily into a chair on the side of the table she's sat in many times.

An interrogation room looks vastly different from the other side, she realizes. And though she'd known it was designed to, she's surprised by how intimidating it feels to be on this side of the glass. And this side of the table. Bolted to the slab of wood between them no less. And facing the cold reflective glass with her own image staring desolately back at her. Reminding her of the hopelessness of her current predicament.

"Why'd you kill him?" Mike bluntly asks, causing her to frown. Either the man had never taken any classes or coursework in interrogations, or he truly thinks that she is that dumb.

Leaning forward over the table, she insists, "I came home to find him that way. I didn't do it. I wouldn't. I swear."

"'Cause we always take the word of murderers," Mike snarls back.

Slamming her cuffed hands against the table for emphasis, she insists, "It wasn't me! Bugger! I just come home not fifteen minutes before you and the rest of your Bobbies rushed in."

"But in the fifteen minutes you were there, you didn't think to call 991? Didn't think to try and get help for Jessie?" he snidely asks. Leaning eagerly forward as he folds his arms along the top of the scratched wood, he tells her, "See, I think you were using that time trying to hide and destroy evidence."

"I was in shock," she honestly in forms him. "I had just gotten back from taking a jaunt with my brothers. Wasn't until I was fallen in his pools of blood that I realized there was a reason the house felt too bloody quiet."

Snorting, he asks her, "So you expect me to believe you were on a little trip with these mysterious brothers of yours that show up out of nowhere? And that you just _happened_ to come home around the same time we get a phone call from neighbors saying they'd heard screams coming for your place. You really expect me to swallow that load of crap?"

He pauses before doubtfully asking, "Well, if these supposed brothers of yours are your alibi, where are they? Let's get them down here and ask them."

She stiffens, knowing that would be a bad idea for a multitude of reasons. "They didn't come back with me."

Snapping a small notepad out of his pocket, he slams it down on the table along with a pen and shoves them across the table at her. "Then write down a number they can be reached at. Let's get them down here for a chat."

Looking away, she tells him under her breath, "You can't get in touch with them. We went our separate ways again. And I can't ring their mobile because I haven't the foggiest what their number is."

"Right," he answers with satisfaction. The smile on his face telling her exactly what he thinks. "Like I said. It's all a load of crap."

Grunting in frustration, she leans back in her chair as far as her bound hands allow her, her arms pulled taut in front of her. Trying to remain rational, she points out, "It's the truth. And just what sense does it make that these 'neighbors' were just _then_ calling the coppers? Hmm? Look at me," she says, motioning with her cuffed hands at her front. "His blood was already cold and congealing when I fell in it. The blood was already getting dry and tacky. His body…what was left of it, was ice cold. He'd been dead for some hours, Mike. Why'd these _tipsters_ only manage to call about screams moments _after_ I'd returned home? Not hours before when he was actually being killed. Hmm?"

Mike leans even closer over the table as he whispers conspiratorially, "Know what catches my attention 'bout all that? That you seem to know a hell of a lot about dead bodies and the stages of body decomp."

Puffing indignantly, she lies, "It's called bloody reading. Know what that is, Mikey? It's that thing you do when you're looking at words on pages and trying to make sense of them all whilst not to move your lips."

He vaults out of his chair as if shot from a cannon, his angry strides carrying him around the table as he continues shouting accusingly at her, "I know you killed him! And I'm gonna see you fry for it, bitch!"

"Mike!" a censoring voice calls as the door to the interrogation room opens, forcing Mike to freeze in his steps from where he'd been rounding the corner to lay into Tabitha.

"What?!" the livid detective snarls in return, not seeming fazed at the idea of using that sort of tone with his captain.

"You're done here, Detective Hardin," Captain Mullins warns him, holding the door open and gesturing for him to leave. Mike seems to gather himself a bit under his captain's withering stare.

"I'm just getting started, captain. I'm not done yet," Mike pleads, still an edge of demand to his words.

"Yes. You are," the older man warns, his eyes holding the threat of promise that belies the advanced maturity his portly belly and balding head had always given her the impression of. Though she'd only passingly met the man twice before.

Swinging his arms in a shooing motion, the captain tells his detective, "You were done the moment her lawyer got here."

"Lawyer?" both Tabitha and Mike sputter in unified surprise.

"That's right. The chit's lawyer is here now, so you blokes take your ugly mugs elsewhere. Attorney, patient…client privilege or what have you."

Tabitha instantly shoots out of her chair at the voice and sight of the man swaggering into the interrogation room. Her bound hands jerk her back towards the table when she would have rushed him, but she still manages to drag the heavy table a foot or more before her "lawyer" discreetly moves opposite the table from her and leans down against the scuffed wood to stop her from moving it. Cheekily, he grins and asks her, "Did you miss me, poppet?"

Knowing what an enraged, chained up Pit Bull must feel like, she nevertheless lunges across the table as far as her chained hands allow her, snarling at the demon, "I'm gonna make goddamned good on my promise to skin you alive, Crowley. And I'm gonna frickin' get off on doing it."

Giving a salacious shiver, Crowley seductively tells her, "Ooh, touches me in all my naughty places that does."

She lunges again, wordlessly growling when she is still yanked short by her tether to the table.

Crowley throws a disparaging look over his shoulder at the detective and captain who had started back into the room at her threats, snidely telling them, "The two of you can take those ugly wrinkled faces elsewhere. I require a moment alone with my client."

Surprisingly, the two men turn and leave without so much as a word in return, leaving Crowley to return his entire focus to the straining, steaming woman across from him as he casually takes a seat.

"Well now, luv. Finally. Just the two of us. Alone in a room together at last." The salacious grin returns as he reaches across the table to run a finger up the short length of chain cuffing her to the wood. "Just how I'd always imagined it, luv. Handcuffs and all."

He'd leaned forward to stroke the chains, so she takes the opportunity to strike in the only way she can, thrusting her forehead towards his.

The demon proves faster, jerking back just in time to keep from being head-butted.

Instead of anger, he happily tsks her, "Feisty… Bound… And hot. Everything I look for not only in a meal, but also a woman."

She sneers at the reviling combination. Then attacks verbally, "It was you. Wasn't it? You piece of sulphur spewing filth!"

"Sticks and stones, my dear," he scolds, giving her a winning smile as he admits, "Well…that just turns me on even more."

"Let me go!" she shouts, rattling her handcuffs. "You want to try to kill me? Then let me go and face me with the balls I know you never had in life!"

He shrugs unaffected. But does tell her, "Kill you? What on earth gave you that silly notion?"

"You killed Jessie!" she snaps, shoving at the edge of the table and pushing it roughly into the still seated demon.

Crowley raises an eyebrow at her action. Actually pausing to brush at his suit before he stands and tells her, "Oh. That." Making a negating motion with his hand, he tells her, "Well, it wasn't actually _me_ who killed your eager young lad and tore him apart, but yes. I did have that done."

"Why?"

"It just seemed so much more appropriate than sending flowers and chocolate. But of course, that could be the eons of Hell in me talking," he shrugs.

Before she can sputter a response, he actually rolls his eyes and mutters to himself, "Bloody conceited Winchesters. Think _everything_ is about _them_."

To her he explains as though speaking to a five-year-old. "It's called bloody leverage."

"And how does you killing Jessie give you leverage over me?" she demands, shaking her head at the unbelievable nonsense.

Sighing in frustration, Crowley points out, "There's that famous Winchester hubris again. Never said it was leverage against _you_ , did I?"

When she scowls in confusion, he leans closer to tell her, "But having you under my thumb in lock and key? Well now, luv, I can think of a number of brainless parties that would give me good leverage over. Namely, two plaid wearing menaces. I like to think of you as my…insurance policy in case aforementioned parties prove difficult in handling their assignments."

Tabitha actually slumps back into her chair when she realizes how masterfully Crowley had played her into the corner. And into his own hand. Especially when she realizes the demon might intend to use her against more than just her brothers.

Swallowing around the dry lump in her throat, Tabitha manages to ask, "What assignments? What are you talking about?"

Grinning at her, Crowley tells her with more than a little satisfaction, "Haven't you figured it out yet, luv? Your brothers work for _me_. Have been for months now. Them, _and_ that baldheaded thing you call your grandfather."

Wheels spinning in a million different directions, she manages to follow down one stray thought. "You brought them back. Didn't you? Both of them. Our grandfather. _And_ Sam." Eyes narrowing on him as she struggles to keep the lump of emotions from lodging in her throat, she asks him, "Did you do it on purpose? Bringing Sammy back without his soul?"

After a careless shrug, Crowley admits. "Not precisely on _purpose_ , but really, not like he needs the thing to hunt. Pesky little things anyway. I've never missed mine."

She shivers at the implication of the parallel between the demon and her soulless brother.

With a lot less heat in her words, Tabitha promises in a solemn vow, "I'm still going to bathe in your blood one day, Crowley. You had no cause to kill Jessie like you did. He wasn't part of this world. You didn't need to do that to come after me."

" _You_ brought him into our world the moment you let your eyes linger on him, luv. Not that I give a damn about some flea-bitten human. Besides, I needed your mind refocused back where it should be."

He looks her up and down as if trying to decide whether or not to tell her something. Then seems to come to some conclusion as he leans forward to tell her, "I gave serious thought to just turning you back loose with Moose and Squirrel to help them gather my trophy monsters. But then…then I remembered something…Charlie."

She scowls at the name. Remembering that he'd called her that a few times back when they'd first gone after Death's ring. What seems like ages ago.

"Why the hell are you calling me 'Charlie?'" she wonders.

Grinning like she's given the right answer, he gleefully tells her, "Because…I realized what great leverage Charlie would make…against her Angel."

Before she can protest, Captain Mullins and Detective Mike Hardin reenter the room, moving with a more predatory gait than they'd left. And though it's unnecessary, they both briefly flash molten black eyes at her.

"You son of a bitch," she snarls at Crowley. "You can't hold me here forever. I'll get out, and when I do, I'm gonna make the torture of Hell look like a spa vacation."

Crowley actually grins at her, advising her, "You've got more spunk in you than angel boy can handle. The darkness in you is wasted on him. Think of everything the two of us could do together in Hell. You could be my right hand. Come on, luv. Be my Queen of the Damned."

"Crowley, you make my skin crawl."

"You say that like it's a bad thing, luv."

"It is." She snorts again, reminding him, "Besides, being Queen of the Crossroads isn't all that appealing."

"Hell, darling. Hell," he whispers, leaning forward with a conspirator's manner. "I'm the King of Hell now, luv."

"King?" she repeats, more than slightly shocked. "And how'd that come about?"

"There was a void in upper-management. I seized the opportunity," he admits.

"I'll bet," she mutters. But remains insistent. "I have no interests in slugs like you."

He shrugs again. "Oh well. Can't say I didn't try." He nods at his goons, asking them, "Have you got her personal effects?"

The demon riding the former captain tosses a large evidence bag at Crowley, telling him, "That's everything you asked for."

After digging through it, Crowley comes up with her burner phone.

While she frowns at him, he resumes his seat across from her. Flipping the cheap phone open and turning it on as he tells her, "Time to make a call to Burt and Ernie."

Tabitha leans back in her chair as she grins in satisfaction. "Oh?" she asks as she hears the telltale beeps of the phone coming to life. "Were you expecting there to be contacts on that phone? Sorry. I've never been good at remembering to add phone numbers to those things. Guess you _won't_ be getting in touch with my brothers to taunt them with having me."

Smugly, she settles back in her chair as she counts down time. Knowing that not too much more time can go by before her older brother will become unsettled by not having heard back from her as she'd promised she'd do when she got back to her place with Jessie. She may have skipped like a schoolgirl into Crowley's trap, but she knows it's only a matter of hours until her brothers come looking for her.

Crowley snorts as he begins dialing numbers into the phone. "Really think I'd need something as mundane as a phonebook to get the numbers I need?"

As the line begins to ring, Crowley places the phone on speaker, setting it on the table as the two henchmen move behind her, one covering her mouth with his sulphur reeking meat hook of a hand.

" _Yo, Tab. What the hell took you so long? We were just about to turn around and come track your ass down,_ " Dean's voice gruffly says through the phone.

"God. You're so uptight, Dean. I swear. I don't need you hounding me around every corner. I can take care of myself. I just called to tell you to leave me alone. I'm out. For good this time. So leave me alone and don't contact me again or come looking for me."

Tabitha's eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets to hear her own voice coming out of Crowley's mouth.

" _Dammit, Tabitha,_ " Dean growls. " _You want some apple-pie life, and I get that. But we're not meant for it. Deep down, you know it. And dragging along that dude in your life is only going to end badly. Either with him breaking your heart when he can't handle this life and walks away, or with him bloody and dead. You know that's the only way it can end. So put that foolishness aside and_ help _me. We've got to figure out a way to get our brother's soul back._ "

As a tear rolls down her cheek and over the hand against her mouth, Crowley angrily tells her brother with her own voice, "No. You listen to me, Dean. I'm done. I'm done with all of it. And if you think I really give a damn about whatever woes you've got this week, then you're wrong. It's always one thing after another with the two of you, and I'm through. I've had enough. Neither of you are worth the effort and heartache. My life was going great until you two showed back up. So do us all a favor, and keep your cursed crap out of my life. Just stay completely out of my life from now on."

After a loaded silence, Dean angrily snaps, " _Fine. Consider us gone from your perfect little life. For good._ "

Crowley snaps the phone shut. His own voice returning as he assures her, "That should about do it. Don't you think, luv? Should keep them focused on the task at hand. And you can remain waiting in the wings as my insurance policy."

Tabitha jerks away from the demon behind her when he releases her, staring defiantly at the demon across from her as she challenges, "You think that's it? That I'll just roll over and let you keep me under lock and key?"

"What other choice have you got, dearie?"

She closes her eyes, focusing on her last resort, and calling out with all her might for the angel she somehow knows will come for her. No matter what's happened between them already.

Her eyes snap open when the demon bursts into laughter.

"What's the matter, luv, can't quite…get it up? So to speak of course."

As another minute ticks by without an appearance of a certain angel, a sinking sensation settles over Tabitha.

"What did you do?" she whispers.

He gestures towards her hands, and suddenly sigils blaze across the handcuffs on her wrists.

Nodding towards them, he assures her, "Won't matter if you scream yourself hoarse, dearie. The angel isn't going to hear his Charlie's call."

He stands then, telling his henchman, "Get her up."

As the two goons drag her between them out of the interrogation room, one of the other detectives approaches the captain, "Where are you taking the suspect?"

Instead of answering, the captain asks, "Her fingerprints from the crime scene turn up anywhere?"

"No," the detective responds, "We ran her against every database. No hits at all, sir."

The captain nods, "Guess we're gonna take her to the nearest Interpol offices then. They can run her prints and see if she has any records in her own country."

Realizing that Shawn had somehow managed to hack the police department through the USB drive and hide her records, Tabitha opens her mouth to tell the cops the truth. That she's a wanted former FBI agent turned fugitive and that they need to put her in lockdown immediately. Anything to keep them from letting Crowley and his goons whisk her away to somewhere that'll be even harder to escape than a human prison.

But as her mouth opens, Crowley throws her a narrowed look, and no words fall from her lips. As if he'd stolen her voice just as surely as he'd managed to use it to speak to her brothers.

And though she struggles and fights against them, Crowley's goons continue to drag her out of the police station. All the while damning herself that Shawn's thoroughness and efficiency has saved her from hot water, only to dump her into boiling water.

* * *

Tabitha doesn't bother looking up as the demon enters her cell and carelessly drops a plastic tray with food. She hears the sound of found bouncing off of it and liquid sloshing, but she ignores it, continuing to stare up at the dank cement ceiling above her head.

"You need anything?" the demon formerly known as Mike asks her.

She lets her head roll drolly to the side, pulling one of her hands out from behind her head to rattle the chain on her wrist as she asks, "How 'bout some lotion? These cuffs are chaffing my skin."

The handcuffs from the night she had been arrested are now replaced by heavier metal cuffs and large chains welded to the wall.

When the demon only stares at her, she resumes her reclined position with her hands cushioned behind her head. The first week she'd been locked up, the thin blankets of her makeshift pallet in the corner of her cell had seemed hard. But by the second week, her pallet had actually started to seem almost comfortable.

"No? How 'bout a Brazilian Wax? Can I get one of those?"

"No," he grunts, unimpressed by her jokes.

"Why do you even bother to ask then?" she wonders, annoyed by the lack of humor in all of Crowley's flunkies.

"Crowley say to keep you alive. He said nothing about comfortable."

Finally glancing across at the tray the demon had plopped down, she relents, "Then I'm all good, Lurch."

He starts to leave, but stops when Tabitha sits up and calls out to him.

"Hey, don't go yet."

"What?" he impatiently demands.

"What got brought in this time?"

He stares at her in stony silence.

She nods towards the door at the rest of the warehouse. "I can hear the screams. I know he's working some kind of monster over. What's he got this time?"

At first, the demon had ignored her questions, but over the weeks he'd begun answering the seemingly innocuous ones.

"Shifter," he finally grunts.

"Really?" she says with false praise. "They're tough."

"We'll see."

Leaning forward to fold her chained arms over her drawn up knees, she presses in a light, curious tone, "So what's he trying to get all these Alphas to tell him anyway?"

Face darkening, the demon tells her, "Who said Crowley wants anything from them?"

Shrugging, she replies, "You don't just torture that many people because you have nothing better to do on a Wednesday night."

He gives her an amused look. "You've never been to Hell."

Again, she shrugs. "Guess not. But, come on. I don't need to know Hell to know that torture for the hell of it isn't Crowley. He's a businessman. I'm sure he's a master at the art, but to a businessman like him, it's just a tool in his belt. A means to an end. Which means he's trying to get something out of these Alphas?"

The demon grants her a dark stare. "I'd mind your own business if I were you."

When the demon leaves with a slamming of her cell door, Tabitha returns to staring at the ceiling overhead.

Two weeks, she thinks to herself. Two weeks and she still hasn't found her window of opportunity for escape.

Plans, she has, but she had seen some of the facility as they hauled her into the old abandoned warehouse. Crowley's henchman, the one she'd unaffectionately named Lurch, had knocked her unconscious as they'd left the police station. Luckily for her, she'd taken more than one punch in her life, and had started coming to just inside the warehouse. And while hanging limply from his shoulder, she'd observed some of the inner workings of the place.

Most importantly, she'd noted that the place was crawling with demons. Any escape plans she had would have to be put on hold. If she tried to slip her cell now, she wouldn't make it thirty feet before a demon grabbed her again.

So for now, she has no choice to wait.

Sitting up on her pallet, she reaches out to pull her tray of food closer. She notes that like always, her plastic tray is adorned only with foods, paper plates, paper cups, and Styrofoam bowls. Not even any silverware. Lest she find some way to use something as a weapon or means of escape. In fact, other than the scant blankets she lays on, her cell is empty. Nothing hard. Nothing sharp.

After she eats her unappetizing meal, she falls back onto her makeshift bed, grumbling at the ceiling, "Not even a freakin' chocolate on my pillow. Definitely won't be choosing to stay at this particular hotel again."

She remains silent afterwards, but in her mind, she calls out again to Castiel. Though she knows it's futile, she prays with all her might for him to hear her. Prays that he still cares. Prays that against all odds, he'll still come for her, just like he'd said he would.

But he doesn't.

And he won't.

Crushing the empty paper cup in her hand, she chucks it at the sigils painted so tauntingly on her ceiling. Reminding her just why Castiel won't be coming. Just why he can't hear her.

And just why she's stuck bidding her time.

Waiting for that one perfect moment.

* * *

Tabitha's eyes snap open as she hears the commotion of feet running past her cell. Though she springs from her bed and walks to the door, she's only able to lean far enough against her chain to catch a peek through the bars of her heavy wooden door.

Something has the demons riled up though. She can hear them running about.

Then, she hears a chilling sound she'd hoped to never hear again.

Somewhere in the distance, she can hear the bloodcurdling sound of hellhounds braying. Snarling.

Running.

Against the better judgment of the part of her that wants to cower and hide in the corner from the hellhounds on the loose, she instead runs back to her bed. With her toe, she catches the edge of the blankets, tossing them easily back and revealing her bra hidden neatly underneath. As she drops to her knees, she expertly twists and manipulates the satin, pushing and tugging on the underwire until it works free of the fabric.

"Men," she triumphantly crows, making quick work of picking the locks at her wrist with the wire.

"They think the only magic in bras is keeping our boobs perky. They don't even know half of what they can do."

The door to her cell is only slightly trickier. But luckily enough, the demon that had been stationed outside her cell is gone, leaving his post to take part in whatever has the hornet's nest so abuzz. And standing on her tiptoes, she's just able to reach through the bars to pick the lock on the outside of the door.

Finally free of her cell, Tabitha looks in each direction, trying to decide the best direction to run in.

She starts down one hallway, only to freeze at the sight of a hellhound rounding the corner. It skids to a halt at the first glimpse of her. A sickening, doglike grin splitting its bloody face as its tongue lolls lazily out the side of its mouth. The hellhound sniffs the air, padding forward towards her with careless, but predatory steps.

Her breath catches in her throat at the sight of it stalking towards her. Somehow, she'd forgotten how grisly and horrifying the sight of the things were. Their putrid flesh hanging from their bodies. And only distantly, does she think to be surprised that she can _still_ see the damned things. Even after her resurrection wiped Lucifer's mark from her chest.

When the hellhound pauses and gathers itself to launch at her, she twists and shoves at its body, letting it dive through the air past her as she sprints by, racing for the doorway it had just come through.

The door barely slams shut on the hellhound's muzzle as it reverses course and launches towards her again. And though the door is metal, she knows it's no match for the beast, so she turns to sprint once more down the hall.

All too soon, she hears the telltale creaking sounds of the metal door being torn from its hinges. And she doesn't need to look over her shoulder to know by the sounds of the claws striking concrete that more hellhounds have joined the first in chasing her.

Tabitha weaves around corners and twists down different corridors at every opportunity. Hoping beyond hope that every sharp turn she takes and the skidding sounds of claws on concrete means she's staying at least one step ahead of the beasts.

Ahead of her, she hears hellhounds snarling and barking, and her steps nearly falter when she sees the group ahead of them racing towards her, trying to outrun the hounds at their own heels.

Sam and Dean are already slamming the doors closest to them shut, locking the doors in place with a baseball bat through the handles against the hellhounds tearing into fallen demons on the other side.

Neither of her brothers notices her slamming the doors shut on her side of the corridor, bracing her back against them as the hounds that had been chasing her slam against the doors with all their might.

Though she's jolted forward, she manages to just hold the doors together, urgently snapping at her brothers, "Tell me you guys have another bat in that bag!"

They both spin around in surprise at her voice, stopping to stare at her in shock as the hounds hit the doors behind her once more.

Her hands almost slip again from the door handles as she snaps at her brothers and the angel staring stupefied at her, "Now!"

Castiel surprisingly reacts first, thrusting his hands into the bag at Sam's feet and coming out with an axe. With efficient movements, he tosses the weapon at her. Which she catches in just enough time to slide through the handles of the doors at her back.

"Salt," she barks next, turning back to the angel just as he tosses a bag of the stuff at her.

Dean finally seems to shake himself from his surprise at seeing her, striding forward to angrily demand, "What the hell are you doing here? I thought you wanted out of the life. And you pick _now_ to try to hit this place alone? Are you an idiot?"

"Are _you_?!" she snaps back. "I've been here the _whole_ time. You guys hitting this place is what finally gave me the distraction I needed for escape."

Dean opens and closes his mouth several times as he digests this new information. Waving his hand around and indicating to the hellhounds boxing them in, he demands, "You were captured? When? How?" He makes a negating gesture with his hand, trying to expedite the answer he really wants. "You call _this_ escaping?!"

"It's a work in progress," she growls, eyes darting around the small space for some other plan.

Dean shakes his hand at her, "We're so talking about whatever the hell has been going on with you as soon as we get out of here."

"Let's focus on this first," she suggests.

Turning towards the woman Tabitha had initially dismissed, Dean tells her, "I knew this was a trap."

"What do you want, a cupcake?" Meg snidely rejoins.

"Meg?" Tabitha asks in surprise when she recognizes the demon. "What? Is she like my replacement?"

"Well, you wanted out," Dean stubbornly defends. "And she also wants Crowley dead as much as we do."

Tabitha's eyes narrow on her brother as she assures him, "Not _nearly_ as much as _I_ do."

Seeming unfazed by the drama, Sam tells them, "All right, that should keep them out."

"Not for long," Tabitha assures her brother, wrapping her arms around herself to fight off the chill and feeling very underdressed. "Those things looked half-starved."

Dean turns back to stare at her when he hears her words, frowning in his usual manner before downright scowling at her and asking, "Are you even wearing a bra?"

She looks down at herself, shifting her arms to hide the obviously cold state of her chest under her thin, skimpy black tank top. She'd been given that by the demons to replace her bloody shirt. And the leather pants and boots she wears are the same clothes she'd last been wearing when she'd been with her brothers. Although she'd had a jacket then as well. The demons hadn't let her keep it though.

"No," she admits, blushing a bit against her will that Dean had noticed, but quickly defends, "It was part of my escape plan."

"I don't even want to know how being braless helped you escape," Dean huffs, turning to look back at the sounds of the snarling hounds still jumping at the doors.

"Kinky," Meg purrs, giving Tabitha a long look of appreciation before she continues. "Well, I'll be pulling for you…from Cleveland."

"What?!" Dean shouts.

"I didn't know this was gonna happen," Meg assures them. "Bright side—them chewing up my meatsuit ought to but you a few seconds. Seacrest out."

Meg tilts her head back and opens her mouth. Only to find that she can't smoke out of her body.

"Performance anxiety?" Tabitha asks with a sneer.

For the first time since her appearance, Castiel speaks. "It's a spell, I think, from Crowley. Within these walls, you're locked inside your body."

"Karma's a bitch, bitch," Dean responds a little too happily.

Sam suddenly pulls Ruby's knife from the waistband at the small of his back, holding it contemplatively in his hand.

"What are you gonna do?" Dean asks, eyeing the knife warily. "You gonna slash at thin air until you hit something?"

Holding the handle out towards Meg, Sam tells her, "You can see them. Take this. Hold them off. It's our best shot."

Meg considers it, but then surprises them all by replying, "At Crowley. Take it and go. You kill the smarmy dick. I'll hold off the dogs."

"How are you gonna do that I—"

Dean's words are cut off as Meg stalks closer to Castiel, grabbing the back of his neck and tugging him down into a heated kiss. When she pulls back with a smirk on her face and an angel blade in her hand, Tabitha wants to charge the demon. But somehow, she remains glued in place as she stares in shock at the angel that had more than returned the demon's kiss.

As if sensing her accusing stare, he almost sheepishly tells her, "She kissed _me_."

"And you _kissed her back_ ," Tabitha snarls, her feet finally carrying her forward until she stands in front of the angel.

Castiel had turned to face her, his shoulders rounding as he lowers his head towards her to pointedly remind her, "And _you've_ never kissed your human?"

Angered by his reminder of the man she'd gotten killed by allowing him into her life, Tabitha cups her hand against the back of his neck, punishingly yanking him down the rest of the way to her mouth, far more harshly than Meg had.

Yet when she wraps an arm around him underneath his trench coat, slipping her hand beneath the waistband of his pants, he jerks her closer, spinning her until her back collides with the wall and pressing the length of his body against her as they punishingly explore each other's mouths. Their tongues battling for dominance. Each silently chastising the other for their own reasons. And for their past actions.

Suddenly, Castiel pulls back, his breath perfectly even while she pants to control her racing heart. A stubborn look on his face, he reminds her, "You're the one that chose that human."

Knowing he's referring to their past conversation, she reminds him, "You left me before I could even walk away. You're the one that went back to Heaven. I was stuck here alone."

"You didn't wait."

"I didn't know I was supposed to. Seemed to me like you were done with me."

"I wasn't."

When he looks away after the whispered confession, she feels a streak of guilt as she reminds him in a scant whisper, "I've told you before, I don't do lonely well."

Her eyes shut against the pain, trying to stem it. Trying to shut it out. Deep down though, she knows the truth. No matter how many times she thinks she's escaped, he still holds her heart captive. Whether he realizes it or not. She can fool herself into thinking she's broken free, but in the end, she always returns to him. Because he holds her heart. And doesn't even realize he holds the power to crush her once and for all.

"Well, enough lover's drama," Meg almost gleefully interrupts, telling them, "Okay, gotta go," as she holds up Castiel's angel blade.

"Whoa, whoa, is that gonna work on a hellhound?" Dean asks tearing his sneer from the sight of his sister and the angel.

"Well, we're about to find out. Run!" she shouts.

The boys start to move away, but Tabitha steps beside the demon, a slight sneer on her own face as she holds up the other angel blade she'd taken from Castiel.

"You should run, sugar," Meg warns her. "Those things will tear you apart."

"I can hold my own, darling," she promises in return, the dark look tugging her mouth even more at the demon's endearment.

Her brothers stop when they realize her intentions, starting back for her.

"Go!" she shouts at them, gesturing towards the only corridor not currently blocked by hellhounds. "We'll hold them off."

"This is insane," Dean reminds her as he starts towards her. "They're friggin' hellhounds, Tab."

"And I can see them just as well as Meg can," Tabitha reminds her brother. "Go. Find Crowley. And when you do, give him a special something from me. And tell him that it's for Jessie."

Dean's gaze darkens as he catches her grim meaning, and jerks a nod once in response, seeing the determination in her eyes and no doubt guessing more or less what happened to Jessie.

"Watch yourself," he warns her, looking back and forth in a measuring way between her and Castiel.

The angel had stopped along with her brothers, and remains in place after they start down the open hallway again. Regret shines in his eyes as they stare at each other.

"Go," she softly insists, jerking her head in the direction of her brothers. He opens his mouth, as if he's going to tell her something. But then, he turns to run silently after her brothers.

As Tabitha and Meg twist and back up until their shoulder blades connect, Meg tells her over her shoulder, "You know, the dewy-eyed romance crap is enough to choke a friggin' unicorn."

"Yeah, I suppose so," she readily agrees. "Guess I never thought I'd become one of those dewy-eyed saps myself. Must be all the hearts and butterflies and rainbow-farting unicorns that finally got to me."

Meg snorts at her cynical tone, her own voice taking on an almost scornful, yet surprisingly wistful tone as she mutters, "At least you found _your_ unicorn."

"For a short time," Tabitha sighs under her breath, unwilling to let her heart consider Castiel's confession and what that might mean for them. Or how easily he can still crush the heart he unknowingly holds in his hands.

Both women tense and push back against each other as the two doorways finally burst open at the hellhounds' beatings.

"Guess there's worse meatsacks I could die fighting beside," Meg scorns.

"Guess there's worse demons I could die beside, too," Tabitha returns, grudgingly feeling camaraderie with the demon she knows wants Crowley as dead as she does.

The women push off from each other as the hounds race at them from both sides.

* * *

When the last hellhound is finally slayed, human and demon find themselves once more back to back. Only now sitting on the floor of the corridor, the dead bodies of hellhounds scattered around them.

Meg glances down at her torn jacket sleeve and bloodied arm beneath, commenting, "At least it didn't shred this meatsuit too bad. I've become sort of fond of it."

Tabitha glances down at her own tattered clothing, peeling back the bloodied and torn tank top from her side to examine her own wounds. She'd been lucky. Most of the cuts to her hands and arms are superficial. The slash through her side is a bit more serious however. Though no worse than other pains she's been dealt in the past few years.

For the most part, she considers herself lucky. The claws of the hellhound that had gotten too close had hit her high on her side, glancing off her ribs instead of hitting the more fragile skin below her ribcage. It's uncomfortable, but she knows she can get through it. After all, she's gotten through worse.

With unsteady muscles, she pushes to her feet, feeling like a newborn foal still wobbly on her legs. When she steps around to help Meg, the demon glances up in surprise before taking the proffered hand and tugging herself upwards.

"Excepting help from a Winchester," she mutters under her breath, "Makes me feel downright dirty. And not in a good way."

"Don't you think I wouldn't rather stab this blade through your neck instead of helping you up?" Tabitha flippantly tosses back.

The share a sneer that lacks any former heat, each stepping over the dead hounds as they pick their way in the direction her brothers went.

As Meg steps towards the corridor, a man suddenly steps out, swinging a fist in a clothesline maneuver and knocking Meg onto her back. And before Tabitha can react, her reflexes slowed by their recent battle, the man swings out his other fist, connecting with a solid blow to her temple. Her vision goes dark with the last sight of Christian standing over her, his eyes flashing to demon black.

* * *

She jerks to consciousness at the guttural sounds of Meg's screams. Jerking when she feels herself once more bound, but able to turn to look at the source of the demon's cries.

Her eyes land on Meg, stripped of her clothes and strapped to a metal table. Her arms spread and her body only partially covered by leather straps bearing demon-trapping symbols carved into them.

The demon in question, though emitting screams at Christian's ministrations, still pauses to give a throaty laugh, telling him, "You know, you're sticking that thing in all the wrong places."

Christian pauses, moving away from his work to stalk closer to her upper body, challenging her with, "Really? You sure were squealing."

He holds the bloody blade of Ruby's knife in the air like a trophy, a pleased look flashing across his face as he stares Meg down.

"Knock yourself out," Meg continues nonchalantly. "It's a host body. Some girl from Sheboygan. Moved to L.A. to be an actress. It's probably not even the worst thing that ever happened to her."

Christian grins, squatting down to return to his cutting as Meg resumes her pained screams.

Tabitha hadn't been still upon waking. At finding herself still thankfully clothed but also unfortunately strapped to a metal table, she'd begun working herself free of her restraints. Not letting herself ponder how Christian has the knife she'd last seen in Sam's hands.

She curses the leather straps that mold more closely to her wrists than the metal handcuffs she'd been taught to slip by both the FBI and her father. Yet, as she maneuvers her hand, curling it to make it smaller and then dislocating her thumb, she manages to slip one hand free, and then release the other.

Meg's cries of pain bleed into peals of laughter as Tabitha stalks behind Christian, and in his absolute focus on Meg, he doesn't sense her approach behind him.

Not even when he stands to curiously ask Meg, "What are you laughing at?"

Tabitha reaches around him to pluck Ruby's knife from his hand, plunging it into his back before the demon has time to move.

As Christian and the demon ridding him both die, Meg smugly fills him in on the joke. "Tabitha Winchester's behind you…meatsack."

With a grunt, Tabitha yanks the knife free, letting the demon fall with a thud. Then she turns to see her brothers race into the room, both looking a bit worse for wear themselves.

Sam looks his sister and the demon over with dispassionate eyes, telling his siblings only, "We should go."

Dean glances back and forth between his siblings, seeming torn between doing what their younger brother says, and saying something to Tabitha about the demon she stands next to.

Not waiting for any other words from her brothers, Tabitha turns to begin unstrapping the helpless demon.

Meg looks surprised as she stares helplessly up at the human, her mouth opening several times as she seems to struggle with what to say.

"Don't," Tabitha woodenly warns, though her eyes soften on the demon for a moment as she tells her, "Call it a human weakness that I get a little sentimental about those I kill hellhounds beside." She pauses before the strap around Meg's wrist is fully loosened to threaten the demon, "But if you ever kiss him again, I'll strap you right back down here."

Meg grins saucily, not asking who "he" is. "Don't make promises of a good time you don't intend to keep."

With one hand loose, Meg makes quick work of freeing her other appendages, silently accepting and donning the clothes Tabitha passes her way.

"What now?" Tabitha asks her brothers as she turns back towards them, glancing around curiously for the angel.

Answering the unasked first, Dean grunts, "Got poofed out in a burst of light. Angel banishing sigil. And I guess we do like Sam says, and get." Not having been the first time it's happened to Castiel, Tabitha only frowns, wondering how long it will keep him away this time.

Shaking her head in response to his other suggestion, Tabitha stubbornly plants her feet. "I'm not leaving. Not without Crowley's head. That bastard _deserves_ everything he's got coming to him."

Dean hesitates, and then asks, "What the hell happened? How'd you end up here anyway? I mean, last you told us, you wanted totally out. Now you're here. And what's all this about escaping or something?"

She rolls her eyes at her brothers. "That wasn't me you talked to, Einstein. That was Crowley you were on the phone with. He can mimic voices or some shit like that. And that was after he'd had Jessie killed while I was off running around with you guys, and then framed me for his murder. After that, he kept me locked up here for a few weeks. During which I had to bide my time, waiting for a chance to escape without running into a pack of demons. Which, at least your little incursion gave me the chance I needed to do so."

Dean scowls at her tattered and bloody clothes. "Yeah, 'cause it looks like you made a clean getaway."

"I don't care," she reminds him. "I'm taking Crowley's head."

"That's the spirit," Meg enthuses, tugging her leather coat on. "It's what we're all here for, kiddos."

Dean gives Tabitha a meaningful stare, tipping his head back towards Sam as he tells her, "That's not what _we_ came here for."

Catching his hint, she replies, "Then that's all the more reason to finish this _now_."

Sighing in frustration, Dean looks around the room and asks, "Well, what do you suggest? 'Cause we don't even know where Crowley is right now."

Stalking over to the wall, Tabitha reaches out to tug on the fire alarm handle. "Then maybe we should ring the doorbell as it were, and make _him_ come to _us_."

As the shrill noise shrieks its siren call, the Winchesters quickly move to set their trap, and then await their pray.

Within a few minutes, Crowley strolls into the room. Having stationed himself by the fire alarm, Dean pushes the handle back in place to silence the noise.

Seeming only slightly annoyed, Crowley informs the oldest Winchester, "You should be ghoul scat by now."

Unceremoniously, Sam jumps out behind Crowley, slamming him in the back of the head with the large wrench he'd found.

The demon is sent sprawling to his hands and knees, falling forward and into the demon trap they'd laid in preparation.

Though she might have once given him a censoring look for the brutally efficient means of getting the demon into their trap, Tabitha merely joins her older brother in giving Sam an approving grin for the somewhat arguably, needlessly violent action.

Still on his knees, the demon asks them, "Really necessary?" He picks himself up and dusts his suit off. "I just had this dry-cleaned."

Following his remarks, he finally looks up, spotting the trap Tabitha had hastily painted on the ceiling from atop Sam's shoulders.

With a maudlin look, Crowley continues. "So…to what do I owe the reach-around?"

The Winchesters turn as Meg strolls back into the room, gleefully greeting him with, "Crowley."

His face hardens as he returns, "Whore."

"Okay, you know what?" Meg raises a hand and clenches her fist.

Immediately, Crowley doubles over, violently retching as Meg grins.

To the Winchesters, she explains, "The best torturers never get their hands dirty."

Despite the circumstances, Tabitha grins a little as she admires, "Gotta love a girl that can do some dirty work and still stay clean."

Returning her attention to Crowley, Meg lowers her hand to tell him, "Sam wants a word with you."

Still coughing a bit, Crowley almost congenially asks, "What can I do for you, Sam?"

"You know damn well. I want my soul back."

"And here I thought you just grew some balls, Sam," Meg throws in, assessing him.

Ignoring her, Sam presses, "Well?"

In the wake of a tense moment, Crowley answers simply, "No."

"Hit him again," Tabitha suggests, nodding her permission towards the trapped demon.

Eagerly, Meg steps forward, raising her fist once more as Crowley is this time driven to his knees.

When Meg relents, Crowley insists, "I can't."

"Can't or won't? Sam questions.

"I said 'can't.' And I meant can't you mop-headed lumberjack," Crowley repeats even more insistently. Straightening on his knees, he adds, "I was lucky to get this much of you out. Going back in there for the sloppy bits? No way. I'm good, but those two in there? Forget it."

"How do I know you're not lying?"

"You don't. But it doesn't change anything. I'm telling you." The demon heaves a sigh. "Sam, why do you want the thing back? Satan's got one juicy source of entertainment in there. I'd swallow a rag off a bathhouse floor before I took that soul. Unless you _want_ to be a drooling mess."

Glancing over her shoulder, Meg throws her two-cents in. "Sam, I hate to say it, but he's right."

Frowning, Sam replies, "Yeah, right. I get it. Thanks." Nodding at Meg, Sam offers, "He's all yours."

Torn between wanting him dead and knowing they might still need him to make Sammy whole, Tabitha finds herself partially agreeing when Dean begins arguing.

"Whoa. What are you, crazy? He's our only hope!"

"Dean, you heard him. He can't get it. He's useless!"

When Dean looks to her for input, Tabitha can't help selfishly replying, "We'll find another way to help Sam. We always do. But I want that sonofabitch dead."

Meg and Tabitha had ended up standing on either side of Dean, so when the oldest Winchester decidedly holds Ruby's knife out in an offer between them, the demon and human turn to regard each other.

"Jessie's dead because of that asshole. He didn't have to do that. Jessie wasn't part of this world," Tabitha insists by way of arguing for her right to kill the demon.

"This asshole's been trying to run my ass down since he took over Hell," Meg insists back. "Plus, he helped the three of you put Lucifer in the cage in the first place."

Eyes narrowing, Tabitha fires back, "I saved your life back there."

"I've helped save your brothers' lives."

"Who hasn't?" Tabitha impatiently sneers.

After a moment of thought and clenching her jaw tightly shut, Meg grinds out, "I've wanted that asshole dead for longer than you've even been alive. Certainly longer than your little _fling_ with your human."

Tabitha bristles at the barb, but can't bring herself to argue against the truth of Meg's words. Pushing the knife towards her, she requests of the demon, "Make sure he hurts first."

Meg grins in anticipation. "I do so _love_ foreplay."

She then steps up to the edge of the trap, hesitating again to ask the siblings, "You'll let me back out, right?"

At their nods, she flips the knife around, confidently stepping inside the trap with Crowley as she tells him, "This is for Lucifer, you pompous little—"

Crowley kicks out and knocks Meg from her feet, grabbing the knife and throwing it at the ceiling, and breaking his trap.

He stands and addresses the Winchesters before they can even react, smugly telling them, "That's better."

With raised hands, he snaps his fingers in a gesture that sends Sam and Dean flying sideways into opposite walls. Frowning slightly when Tabitha remains unmoved.

As Ruby's knife falls from the ceiling, Tabitha makes a rush to grab it, trying to dodge around Crowley to reach it. The demon is quicker, grabbing her by the throat with one hand, and neatly snatching the knife from mid-air with the other.

Squeezing until Tabitha's knees buckle, Crowley then returns his attention to Meg, holding her at bay with the knife as he tells her, "You don't know torture, you little insect."

"Release her," Castiel warns, suddenly appearing several feet from Tabitha. "And leave them alone."

"Castiel," Crowley greets, squeezing Tabitha's neck a little harder as she claws uselessly at his steel grip. "Haven't seen you all season. You the cavalry now?"

"Release her… _now_ ," Castiel growls in warning eyes darting down to Tabitha.

"You that bossy in Heaven?" Crowley continues to blithely ask, "Hear you're losing out to Raphael. The whole affair makes Vietnam look like a roller derby."

Though he seems unconcerned, Crowley does strangely release Tabitha, giving her a little shove towards the angel.

Finally able to suck in deep breaths, Tabitha scrambles backwards on her butt until her back connects with Castiel's shins, taking wheezing and shuddering breaths as Castiel briefly lays a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Seeming assured that she's okay, Tabitha hears the angel pull something from behind his back and turning, sees him holding out a canvas sack.

Curious, the demon asks, "Hey, what's in the gift bag?"

Revealing a skull, Castiel replies, "You are."

In disbelief, the demon insists, "Not possible."

"You didn't hide your bones as well as you should have."

Crowley finally removes the knife from where he'd held it at Meg's face, sliding it under his arm as he turns to sarcastically clap. "Cookie for you."

Dropping the bag, Castiel demands, "Can you restore Sam's soul or not?"

Tabitha messages her aching neck, scooting further away from the angel to watch what he's doing, knowing that something seems off—and has seemed off about him since she first saw him again—but pushing the matter from her mind to focus on rubbing the tender muscles of her neck instead.

Crowley snaps his fingers, releasing his hold on Sam and Dean before he offers, "If I can help out in any other—"

"Answer him!" Dean shouts.

"I can't."

Castiel immediately turns, his hand hovering over the bones for a moment before they burst into flames.

Tabitha throws a hand over her eyes as the demon shockingly bursts into flame as well.

When she lowers her arm, the demon and the pile of bones are both mere smoldering ash.

"That can happen to demons?" Tabitha finds herself asking the room.

"We'll explain later," Dean promises, coming forward to help her to her feet.

Before she can react, Sam darts forward to snatch up Ruby's knife from the smoldering ash that had once been Crowley. Luckily, Meg reacts even quicker, disappearing before Sam can straighten up with the blade. Although Tabitha isn't exactly sure why she sighs in relief at the thought of the demon getting away. Other than having a sort of reluctant respect for the demon that had wanted Cowley's head as much as she had.

"Well, she's smart. I'll give her that," Dean begrudgingly compliments. "I was gonna kill her, too." He gives Castiel a wicked look before tacking on, "'Course, I'd have given you an hour with her first."

Castiel looks around in confusion, actually turning to Tabitha to ask, "Why would I want that?"

Ignoring the question, Tabitha punches her brother's arm. "Fuck off." She's annoyed by her brother's obvious attempt to rile her, but she's too preoccupied with wondering why she doesn't feel more relief at the demon's death than to let herself rise to his bait.

When she starts past the angel to exit the room, she dodges when the angel reaches for her, wincing and not moving particularly fast thanks to a multitude of hurts: numerous cuts and bruises, the deep cut curving along her ribcage, and now her tender throat.

Castiel briefly pulls back at the way she shies from him, and then tentatively reaches out again, quietly offering, "You're hurt."

Tamping down her pride, she clenches her jaw and nods her permission. She closes her eyes as the angel reaches out to brush his fingertips along her cheek, the simple move tucking stray hairs behind her ear and healing the multitude of injuries her body had sustained.

He whispers a heartfelt, "I'm sorry," while staring into her eyes before walking from the room.

Watching him go, her mind thinks to wonder only two things, what a shame it is that so simple a touch couldn't heal everything broken between them. And to wonder just _what_ he was apologizing for.

* * *

Standing outside the Impala, Dean tells the angel with a sneer, "I'd say thanks for saving our asses, Cas, but I think we all know the only _real_ reason you even came back." His words are accompanied by a matching frown to his sister beside him.

Castiel glances at Tabitha in the wake of Dean's snide comment, frowning as he tries to formulate a response.

Tabitha doesn't hesitate where the angel does, punching her brother's arm as she reminds him, "He came with you in the first place. Before he even knew I was here. So don't be a dick, Dean."

In his normal fashion, the angel avoids that which is uncomfortable or he doesn't understand, instead confessing, "Crowley was right though. It's not…going well for me upstairs."

Though she's felt uneasy about the angel since he returned to her life, Tabitha doesn't hesitate to offer, "If there's anything we can do…"

"There isn't," the angel quickly insists. Holding her eyes with a look of promise, he tells her, "I wish circumstances were different. Most of the time…I'd rather be here."

Dean snorts, sidestepping his sister when she tries to hit him again as he snips, "Yeah, and now we know _why_ you'd rather be here."

"Frickin' two-year-old," Tabitha huffs under her breath before returning her attention to the angel and his pronouncement.

She does feel some of her latent resentment slip away at his confession. Yet, she can't seem to let go of it all as she pointedly adds, "But you still have to leave."

"Is the after-school special over yet?" Dean huffs, still shooting dark looks between the angel and his sister.

Castiel holds Tabitha's eyes briefly as he nods in agreement once. And when she looks away to stave off the emotion that wells in her eyes, he mercifully turns his attention to Sam, trying to offer some assurances to him.

"Listen, Sam—we'll find another way."

"You really want to help? Prison full of monsters," Sam suggests. "Can't just leave 'em, can't let 'em go."

"I understand," Castiel nods.

He turns to face Tabitha across the roof of the car one last time, awkwardly telling her, "I am…sorry for the loss of…your…human companion."

He disappears before Tabitha can find an accurate response.

"He's right, you know," Dean tells Sam, finally seeming to lose some of his attitude now that the angel and his sister aren't both in such close proximity.

"About?'

"About your soul."

Pulling her mind from the puzzle of Castiel, Tabitha insists to Sam, "We'll figure something else out. We always do."

"Not this time. No, we won't," Sam stubbornly replies.

Mocking, Dean asks, "Oh, why, because Crowley said—"

"You _heard_ what Crowley said. And I heard what Cas said. Putting this thing back in would smash me to bits."

"That's not a certainty," Tabitha replies, knowing that she's playing catch-up a bit to figure out what happened while she was playing prisoner to Crowley's little warden fantasy.

"You know what?" Sam snaps. "When angels and demons agree on something—call me nuts, I pay attention."

"You say this _now_? After we practically died trying to—"

"Exactly. We almost got ourselves killed! I mean, how many times do we risk our asses for this? Enough's enough."

"Sam—"

"I don't think I want it back."

"Look, I know I'm playing a bit of catch-up here, guys," Tabitha interrupts, "but that's kinda the point, Sam. Without a soul, you can't think or reason straight. You're frickin' impaired as far as I'm concerned."

Agreeing with her, Dean adds, " You don't even know what you're saying."

"No, I'm saying something you guys don't like. The two of you obviously care. A lot. But I think maybe I better off without it."

"That's bullshit," Tabitha huffs.

"You don't know how wrong you are," Dean adds.

"I'm not so sure about that."

When Sam starts walking away, Dean warns, "Sam, don't walk away. Sam! Sam!"

After he continues walking away, Dean turns to ask his sister, "Well, now what the hell do we do?"

"We figure out a way to fix Sam. Whether he wants our help or not," she maintains. "And you fill me in on all the crap I've been missing since I came back to life."

Seeming eager to have her back, but still hesitant after his snipping at the angel, he presses her, "Are you _sure_ that's what you want? You _really_ want back in?"

She walks around the Impala to the passenger seat before she looks across the roof to explain, "You were right, Dean. Only way out of this life is with a bloody end. Either for us, or for anyone else we let get mixed up in our lives. It was selfish of me to think I could get out. I tried, and now I've got nothing to show for it. Not only that, but I got a good man killed. So I'm back in."

"You sure you're ready for this?"

Briefly looking away, Tabitha whispers, "There's a lot of things I'm not sure of anymore. One thing I _am_ sure of is that you and Sam have always come through for me when the chips were down. So I guess no matter what, family needs to stick together."

"What about Cas?"

Tabitha glances back at the warehouse, a little surprised to actually hear Dean ask the question, and thinking to herself about the bits and pieces of things the angel's admitted to her since he returned to her life so unexpectedly. But also thinking about all the things that don't seem to quite add up either. The way he'd held her frozen with his angel power in her brothers' hotel room not being the least of which. Her charm bracelet _should_ have prevented it. It always had in the past, and had certainly stopped Crowley from tossing her around like a rag doll only an hour before.

Not to mention, when he'd searched for Sam's soul, the power he'd unleashed… She hadn't felt anything like that from him before. Inexplicably, he seemed stronger than ever.

Or the simple fact that the angel who hadn't ever known how to lie in the past, suddenly didn't feel like he was telling the truth, either.

Not voicing her myriad of concerns, or her brother's inquiry about the angel, she commands, "Get in the car, Dean."

He starts to get in, but she stops him, hesitantly asking, "You can kill a demon by burning their human remains?"

A short chuckle escapes as he shakes his head. "There's a lot I need to catch you up on from the past few weeks. And even more from the past few months and year and a half."

"Start talking," she suggests as they climb into the Impala, both acutely aware they're leaving Sam behind.

She glances at the warehouse as Dean drives away, a nagging part of her reminding her that she may have escaped one prison, but she's still a prisoner of the heart.

* * *

"You'll have to move your base of operations now."

"Have _you_ to bloody well thank for that."

"I did my best to deter Sam and Dean from coming. It couldn't be stopped."

"At least now those blundering blockheads think I'm dead."

"Yes."

Still not looking at the demon beside him, Castiel warns, "You shouldn't have taken her."

"Hrmph," the demon grunts in return. "I did what I had to. Like always."

Castiel moves in a flash, wrapping his fingers under the demon's jaw and lifting him from the ground. "You don't seem to understand, Crowley. If you touch her again, I'll end you."

Unperturbed by his position dangling in the air, Crowley grits out, "You _need_ me."

Castiel drops the demon, frowning when Crowley merely straightens his tie. "Why did you take her? Why didn't you tell me what your plans were?"

"Perhaps I just wanted to keep her safe for you," Crowley shrugs.

When the angel's frown deepens, Crowley tries again. "She clouds your judgment. And I need you levelheaded, angel. Not to mention, if _you_ want to beat Raphael, you don't need her distractions, either."

"She's not a distraction."

"Of course she is. That's all Charlie is to you, angel. You need to decide, which do you want more, Little Miss Hunter Barbie, or to win the war against Raphael?"

"Touch her again, and I'll destroy you. War with Raphael be damned." He steps forward in a threatening gait. "And don't forget that _you_ need _me,_ too."

"That's right, angel. We're in this together, so let's not allow the Winchesters to dissuade us from our goals."

"Don't touch _any_ of the Winchesters again. They shouldn't be a problem for you anymore."

"And don't forget your side of the deal, either, bird-brain. We _need_ those souls."

"We'll get them."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for your patience. Work sucks right now. For a multitude of reasons, which I won't go in to. But it's left very little time for anything. Let alone writing. Still, I was able to finally get this one finished and edited.
> 
> I've also spent the past couple of days on a road trip thinking about something several people have brought up. And that's what a good song is to go with this story. Or at least to encompass Tab and Cas. Now, that's a hard one, because I can see different songs fitting them at different parts of the story.
> 
> I can see Here Without You by 3 Doors Down fitting them well, and even Say Something by A Great Big World and Christina Aguilera. Someone mentioned Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons, and that's an awesome fit, too. But the one that I'm feeling the most right now is I Gave You All by Mumford and Sons. But then, I'm just sort of on a Mumford and Sons kick right now. :) I can truthfully see any of these being killer trailers if this story was actually canon to the series.
> 
> But my question, just out of curiosity, what other songs do all of you think of when you think of these guys?
> 
> And seriously, thank you all for sticking with me even when I'm slow to update. You all rock! This chapter is for all of you!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for your continued patience everyone! And no fear, the answers are coming in the next chapter. In a big way. ;)  
> And it’s a short chapter, but hang in there.   
> So, stay tuned, part three is just getting started.  
> Don't forget to tip your waitress! I mean…writer. Don't forget to tip, er, feed your writer with reviews! We get hungry! Lol, thanks everyone for hanging in there with me. It'll be worth it, trust me.


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